A data breach cost $3.6M on average in 2017: 6 things to know

Julie Spitzer -

The average cost to recover from a data breach was $3.6 million in 2017, according to AT&T's cybersecurity insights report.

AT&T surveyed 700 people in IT management roles from around the world for its report, "Mind the Gap: Cybersecurity's Big Disconnect."

Here are six things to know.

1. Respondents ranked malware, worms and viruses (60 percent) as the No. 1 threat to their organization in the year ahead, followed by unauthorized access to corporate data (49 percent) and ransomware (46 percent).

2. However, in the healthcare sector, 70 percent of respondents identified ransomware as the No. 1 threat to their organization in the year ahead.

3. Although 70 percent of C-level respondents feel they have adequate cybersecurity talent, roughly half of all respondents admit their organizations face skills gaps in three key areas: threat prevention (56 percent); threat detection (50 percent); and threat analysis (50 percent).

4. Just 61 percent of organizations require security awareness training for all employees, while 32 percent require it for select employees — 6 percent do not require it at all.

5. Employee mobile devices accounted for 51 percent of data breaches in the past 12 months, followed by internet of things devices (35 percent) and compromised third-party credentials (34 percent).

6. Eighty-four percent of respondents report their organizations purchased or plan to purchase cyberinsurance.

Click here to view the full report.

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