Breach Costs

Breaches have wide-reaching, disruptive, and costly impacts:

• Lost business opportunity, including customer churn and higher acquisition losses

• Fines and penalties, including restitution costs if customers are harmed

• Lawsuits, including class-action law suits if customers are harmed

• Direct operational costs, including legal, notifications, credit monitoring, consultants, call center, forensics, system repair, marketing, public relations

• Lost productivity dealing with customer concerns, the press and legal responsibilities

• Increased regulatory oversight and costs, including regular independent audits

• Officer personal liability

• Stock devaluation

The biggest surprise realized by CEOs after a breach is the lengthy adverse impact on key executive productivity, dealing with the media, customers and other stakeholders in crisis management mode to restore company reputation and customer trust.