Since the beginning of the pandemic and introduction of working from home, cyber experts have warned of the potential negative effects this could have on cybersecurity. Although many businesses haven’t had much say in whether they are allowed to open or not as government guidelines have stated that we all must work from home where possible, cyber attacks and data breaches have been on the rise.
Cost of data breaches in 2020
In 2020 data breaches have increased by £104,000 and the majority of this cost came from employees that were working remotely from home. 2020 was a tough year on businesses so you can imagine how significant this amount of money is and how harshly it impacted these businesses.
When we look at the total cost of data breaches that occur on average in the UK, £104,000 of £3.9 million is only a small percentage of the total figure but that amount only inflates by large, enterprise-sized businesses (1). The statistics also showed that the average cost of a data breach per compromised record was £115. This gives you an idea on how much it could cost you per data breach, depending on how much data you have and store. This is why it is important to not only secure your data on a secure platform but also train your staff on cyber security to prevent data breaches.
Remote working and the effect it has had on data breaches
As we stated previously, the cost of data breaches has increased as a result of remote working. The biggest cause of this is because when employees are in the office, it is much easier to spot and take action when something goes wrong. There is a distinct correlation that shows a clear link between the time taken to respond to a data breach and its cost. In fact, IBM has pointed out that on average it takes 280 days to identify the incident and businesses that identify the breach in less than 200 days will save £770,000 (1).
Reducing the cost of data breaches
It has been found that businesses that implemented automated tools that detect data breaches or suspicious behaviours coped the best and saved as much as £2.68 million (1). At Solutions4IT we provide services that can help your data stay safe and secure whilst working from home, learn more on our cybersecurity page here. For many businesses managing and keeping an eye on these incidents can be a time-consuming task which is why we would recommend outsourcing your IT to save on your costs from potential data breaches.
Remote working has been a brand-new experience for many of us this year but it has seemingly become quite familiar now. However, having the right set-up and precautions to keeping your data safe is unarguably key, especially with how advanced technology is now. For more information on how to keep your remote set-up safe, speak with our IT technicians today by calling us on 0121 289 4477 or email us at info@solutions4it.co.uk
