Of course, no company has a fail-safe method of data protection and the consequences of a leak can be severe. As well as the negative effect on public image and reputation, this infographic shows the average monetary cost of a data breach.
As reported by IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute, the costs are the highest in the U.S. with the average incident coming with a price tag of $7.91 million.
Although one may assume that such leaks are always caused by criminal activity, 25 percent of the cases examined were actually due to human error.