Cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab said that small and medium businesses in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META) region have seen mounting costs on account of data breaches
The company estimates that companies that faced data breaches on average lost US$15,000 on new business opportunities, another US$15,000 due to damage to credit rating and insurance premiums and US$14,000 on beefing up cyber security after the breach.
Companies are spending about a third of their IT budget on cybersecurity for 2018, according to a statement from Kaspersky.
The company also estimates much higher costs to larger companies in the region after data breaches.
Kaspersky estimates that companies spend US$144,000 on improving software and lose a similar amount in damages to credit rating and insurance premiums.
Kaspersky also said companies of such scale on average spend US$113,000 on public relations to mend their image after data breaches.
“To support dynamic business changes and to increase efficiency, companies are embracing cloud and business mobility. Cybersecurity has become not just a line item in IT bills, but a boardroom issue and a business priority for companies of any size, as evidenced by companies raising their IT security budgets. Businesses expect a strong payoff as the stakes continue to get higher: besides traditional cybersecurity risks, many companies now have to deal with growing regulatory pressures, for example”, said Maxim Frolov, vice-president, global sales at Kaspersky Lab.
