According to IBM’s annual Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average cost of a data breach in India reached an all-time high of INR 195 million in 2024.
The average cost of a data breach in India hit an all-time high of INR 195 million in 2024, according to IBM’s annual Cost of a Data Breach Report. Costs associated with breaches increased by 39% since 2020 and by 9% from the previous year as demands on cyber teams increased and incidents became more disruptive. 70% of compromised firms worldwide stated that the hack resulted in a major or extremely major disruption. The year-over-year increase in expenditures in India was mostly driven by lost revenue and notification costs, as the fallout from data breaches has only become worse. Notification expenses increased 19% from the previous year, while the cost of lost business—operational downtime, lost clients, and reputation damage, among other things—rose by over 45%.
The complexity of breach investigations is reflected in the minor increase in detection and escalation expenses (almost 7% over the same time period), which again comprises the largest share of breach costs in India. The results of the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report for this year highlight the significance of a proactive, comprehensive, AI-powered strategy for cybersecurity. Cyberattacks are becoming more frequent and sophisticated, which has a multifaceted effect on an organization’s operations, finances, and reputation. In light of the DPDP Act 2023 being prepared for implementation in India, companies must also evaluate the regulatory ramifications of these types of assaults and guarantee end-to-end compliance.
Thus, it is crucial to prioritize data security and protect valuables to guarantee that only authorized individuals have access to organizational resources, according to Viswanath Ramaswamy, Vice President, Technology, IBM India & South Asia. Prominent points of assault Phishing and credentials that were either stolen or compromised were the most frequent initial attack types in India, accounting for 18% of instances each. Cloud misconfiguration comes next (12%). With an average total cost of INR 215 million per breach, business email intrusion was the most expensive root cause. Social engineering (INR 213 million) and phishing (INR 209 million) were the next biggest expenses.
The 2024 research states that data on public clouds accounted for 34% of data breaches investigated in India, while data on multiple environments (public, private, and on-premises) accounted for 29%. The most expensive breaches involved data kept on public clouds (INR 227 million), and the longest to locate and contain (327 days) involved occurrences involving several environments. Industries Affected With an average cost of INR 255 million, the Indian industrial sector was most severely affected by data breaches. The pharmaceutical and technology sectors came in second and third, respectively, with costs of INR 243 million and INR 221 million. Globally, the industries with the largest breach costs were those in essential infrastructure, including healthcare, financial services, energy, and industrial sectors.
Using AI and machine learning-driven insights, proactive threat hunting, and offensive security testing (such as red teaming and pen/vulnerability testing) were some of the strategies that helped the firms under study reduce the overall cost of data breaches in India. Dimensions of time In India, time is another important consideration. The survey also revealed that the average cost to firms that discovered and contained a data breach in less than 200 days was INR 184 million. In comparison, the average cost incurred by firms whose data breach lifespan lasted more than 200 days was INR 205 million.
Following the research from 2023, security AI and automation significantly aided in hastening the identification and containment of breaches for the firms under investigation. As these technologies were widely implemented in India, local businesses saw a reduction in breach expenses of INR 130 million on average and a shortening of the data breach lifecycle by 112 days as compared to corporations without security AI and automation implementations. According to the report, 28% of Indian organizations are currently using security AI and automation substantially, up from 20% in 2023. Even so, there is still a great deal of room for expansion in India, as 72% of the firms surveyed either utilize security AI and automation very little (35%) or not at all (37%).
Also read: Achieving Rapid Outcomes with AI-Driven Cloud Analytics
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