Research has revealed the top 10 countries losing the most money to data breaches and South Africa features in 9th place with an average data breach cost of R58 million in 2021, research by tech firm Proxyrack showed.
For example, in 2022 TransUnion was compromised by the hacker group ‘N4aughtysecTU’ , which left millions of South Africans exposed.
The US was named the most commonly targeted country in the world for data breaches. France followed in second, with South Sudan taking third place.
The average cost of a data breach in the healthcare industry was $9.23 million (R167m), which was the highest of any of the industries profiled. The financial industry had the second highest data breach cost, averaging $5.27m.
To combat data breaches, companies have to pay the price to beef up their cybersecurity.
Last month a survey of business representatives conducted by Kaspersky for the IT Security Economics report found that IT budgets for cybersecurity were set to increase over the next three years for both small and midsize business and enterprises to cover a range of issues.
Businesses in South Africa plan to increase cybersecurity budgets by 22% in the next three years.
According to business representatives, the top five factors driving IT security budget increases in South African organisations were business expansion, the need to boost the level of expertise of IT security specialists, recent cybersecurity incidents, the increasing complexity of IT infrastructure and new risks due to geopolitical and economic uncertainty.
BUSINESS REPORT