2013 Cost of Data Breach Study:

Brazil
Benchmark research sponsored by Symantec
Independently Conducted by Ponemon Institute LLC
May 2013



Ponemon Institute Research Report


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2013
1
Cost of Data Breach Study: Brazil
Ponemon Institute, May 2013

Part 1. Executive Summary

Symantec Corporation and Ponemon Institute are pleased to present the 2013 Cost of Data
Breach: Brazil, our first benchmark study concerning the cost of data breach incidents for
companies located in Brazil. In this inaugural study, the average per capita cost of data breach is
R$116 (Brazilian Real). Ponemon Institute conducted its first Cost of Data Breach study in the
United States eight years ago. Since then, we have expanded the study to include the United
Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, India, Italy and Japan.

This years study examines the costs incurred by 31 Brazilian companies in 11 industry sectors
after those companies experienced the loss or theft of protected personal data and then had to
notify breach victims as required by various laws. It is important to note the costs presented in
this research are not hypothetical but are from actual data loss incidents. They are based upon
cost estimates provided by the individuals we interviewed over a ten-month period in the
companies that are represented in this research.

The number of breached records per incident this year ranged from approximately 2,300 records
to more than 89,000 records. The average number of breached records was 22,847. We do not
include organizations that had data breaches in excess of 100,000 because they are not
representative of most data breaches and to include them in the study would skew the results.
The cost for the 31 data breach case studies in this years report is presented in Appendix 1.

The report examines a wide range of business costs, including expense outlays for detection,
escalation, notification, and after-the-fact (ex-post) response. We also analyze the economic
impact of lost or diminished customer trust and confidence as measured by customer turnover or
churn.

The following are the most interesting findings and implications for organizations:

! Data breach imposes a substantial financial burden for Brazilian companies. The
average total cost of a data breach was R$ 2.64 million. The maximum data breach cost
among 31 Brazilian-based companies was R$9.74 million and the minimum data breach was
R$.23 million. On average, it cost companies R$116 per compromised record. In the context
of this research, we define a record as information that identifies the natural person
(individual) whose information has been compromised in a data breach.

! Lost business represents the largest data breach cost category. These costs refer to
abnormal turnover of customers, increased customer acquisition activities, reputation losses
and diminished goodwill. The cost of lost business averaged R$1.03 million or 39 percent of
the total data breach cost. The average abnormal churn rate was 2.4 percent with a minimum
churn rate of 0 percent and a maximum churn rate of 6.5 percent.

! Notification represents the smallest component of data breach costs. Notification refers
to the steps taken to report the breach of protected information to appropriate personnel
within a specified time period. The cost to notify victims and/or regulatory authorities about
the breach was R$106,125 or only four percent of the total average cost.

! Certain industries have higher data breach costs. Research findings suggest data breach
costs vary considerably by industry sector. In this study, communication, financial and
pharmaceutical companies tend to have a high per capita data breach cost. In contrast,

1
The Cost of Data Breach report is dated as a 2013 publication. Please note that all data breach incidents studied in this
years report happened in the 2012 calendar year. Thus, all figures reflect the 2012 data breach incidents.


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public sector (government), transportation, consumer and retail organizations tend to have a
low per capita cost.

! Employee or contractor negligence was the main cause of a data breach. Forty-two
percent of companies say the data breach incidents were caused by employee errors or
mistakes. Another 35 percent say the incident was caused by system glitches or business
process failures. Twenty-three percent say the main cause of data breach was malicious or
criminal attacks against the organization.

! Malicious or criminal attacks result in the highest per capita data breach cost.
Consistent with other country studies, data loss or exfiltration resulting from a malicious or
criminal attack yielded the highest cost at R$143 per compromised record, on average. In
contrast, both system glitches and employee mistakes resulted in a much lower per capita
cost at R$109 and R$107, respectively.

! Certain organizational factors decrease data breach costs. If the organization has a
strong security posture, the average cost of a data breach was reduced as much as R$19 per
compromised record. In addition, incident planning in advance of the breach and the
appointment of a CISO saved as much as R$11 and R$6, respectively. Finally, engaging
outside consultants to assist with the breach response saved as much as R$5 per
compromised record.

! Certain organizational factors increase the overall data breach cost. For example, data
breaches caused by third parties increased the per capita cost by R$20. In addition, breach
incidents involving the loss or theft of data bearing devices increased per capita cost by as
much as R$11 per record. Finally, organizations that notified customers too quickly, without a
thorough assessment or forensic examination, incurred an average of R$6 more per
compromised record.



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Cost of Data Breach FAQs

How do you collect the data?

Ponemon Institute researchers collected in-depth qualitative data through interviews conducted
over a ten-month period. Recruiting organizations for the 2012 study began in January 2012 and
interviews were completed in December. In each of the 31 participating organizations, we spoke
with IT, compliance and information security practitioners who are knowledgeable about their
organizations data breach and the costs associated with resolving the breach. For privacy
purposes we do not collect any organization-specific information.

How do you calculate the cost of data breach?

To calculate the average cost of data breach, we collect both the direct and indirect expenses
incurred by the organization. Direct expenses include engaging forensic experts, outsourcing
hotline support and providing free credit monitoring subscriptions and discounts for future
products and services. Indirect costs include in-house investigations and communication, as well
as the extrapolated value of customer loss resulting from turnover or diminished acquisition rates.
For a detailed explanation about Ponemon Institutes benchmark methodology, please see Part 4
of this report.

How does benchmark research differ from survey research? The unit of analysis in the Cost
of Data Breach study is the organization. In survey research, the unit of analysis is typically the
individual. As discussed previously, we recruited 31 organizations to participate in this study. All
of these organizations experienced a data breach ranging from a low of about 2,300 to nearly
100,000 compromised records.

Can the average cost of data breach be used to calculate the financial consequences of a
mega breach such as those involving millions of lost or stolen records?

The average cost of a data breach in our research does not apply to catastrophic or mega data
breaches because these are not typical of the breaches most organizations experience. In order
to be representative of the population of the Brazilian organizations and draw conclusions from
the research that can be useful in understanding costs when protected information is lost or
stolen, we do not include data breaches of more than 100,000 compromised records in our
analysis.

Are you tracking the same organizations each year?

Each annual study involves a different sample of companies. In other words, we are not tracking
the same sample of companies over time. To be consistent, we recruit and match companies with
similar characteristics such as the companys industry, headcount, geographic footprint and size
of data breach.










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Part 2. Key Findings

In this section we provide the detailed findings of this research. Topics are presented in the
following order:

! Cost of data breach per record and organization
! Cost of data breach by industry
! Root causes of a data breach
! Factors that influence the cost of a data breach
! Trends in the frequency of compromised records
! Trends in customer turnover or churn
! Trends in the following cost components: detection and escalation, notification, lost business,
direct and indirect and post-data breach
! Preventive measures taken after the breach
! Percentage changes in cost categories

The per capita cost of data breach. Figure 1 reports the average per capita cost of a data
breach for 31 Brazilian companies in 2012.
2
According to the benchmark findings, data breaches
cost companies an average of R$116 per compromised record of which R$45 pertains to lost
business cost. Ex-post response and detection and escalation costs were R$35 and R$31,
respectively. Notification costs represented only R$5 per compromised record.

Figure 1. The average per capita cost
Measured in R$




2
Per capita cost is defined as the total cost of data breach divided by the size of the data breach in terms of
the number of lost or stolen records.
31
5
35
45
116
-
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Detection &
escalation
Notification Ex-post response Lost business Total


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Total organizational cost of data breach. Figure 2 shows the total average cost of data breach
for 31 Brazilian companies in 2012 was R$2.64 million. The largest cost component was lost
business at R$1.03 million on average. The smallest cost component was notification at R$.11
on average.

Figure 2. The average total organizational cost of data breach
R$000,000 omitted


Key cost of data breach measures. Figure 3 reports the maximum, average, median and
minimum total average cost of data breach. As can be seen, there is a wide range of potential
cost consequences for our sample of 31 Brazilian companies. The most expensive data breach
incident cost over R$9.7 million. The least expensive data breach incident cost R$.23 million.

Figure 3. Cost of data breach measures
Measured in R$


0.72
0.11
0.79
1.03
2.64
-
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
Detection &
escalation
Notification Ex-post response Lost business Total
229,688
1,652,198
2,643,805
9,735,941
- 2,000,000 4,000,000 6,000,000 8,000,000 10,000,000 12,000,000
Minimum
Median
Average
Maximum


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Certain industries have higher data breach costs. Figure 4 reports the per capita costs for the
2012 study by industry classification. While a small sample size prevents us from generalizing
industry cost differences, the pattern of 2012 industry results is consistent with other country
studies. Specifically, heavily regulated industries such as communications, financial services and
pharmaceuticals had a per capita data breach cost substantially above the overall mean of
R$116. Public sector, transportation, consumer and retail organizations had a per capita cost well
below the overall mean value.

Figure 4. Per capita cost by industry classification of benchmarked companies
Measured in R$




65
86
96
97
98
103
105
147
150
151
173
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Public sector
Transportation
Consumer
Retail
Energy
Services
Industrial
Technology
Pharmaceutical
Financial
Communications


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Employee or contractor negligence (a.k.a. human factor) is most often the cause of data
breach.
3
Figure 5 provides a summary of the main root causes of data breach for all 31
organizations. Forty-two percent of incidents involved a negligent employee and 35 percent
involved system glitches that includes both IT and business process failures. Twenty-three
percent of these incidents involved a data theft (exfiltration) or criminal misuse.
4


Figure 5. Distribution of the benchmark sample by root cause of the data breach

Malicious attacks are most costly. Figure 6 reports the per capita cost of data breach for three
root causes of the breach incident. The 2012 results are consistent with prior country studies,
wherein the most costly breaches typically involve malicious acts against the company. According
to our research, companies that experienced such an incident had a per capita data breach cost
(R$143) that is significantly above the mean. In contrast, companies that experienced system
glitches (R$109) or employee negligence (R$107) as the root cause of the data breach incident
had per capita costs significantly below the mean value.

Figure 6. Per capita cost for three root causes of the data breach
Measured in R$


3
Negligent insiders are individuals who cause a data breach because of their carelessness, as determined in a post data
breach investigation. Malicious attacks can be caused by hackers or criminal insiders (employees, contractors or other
third parties).
4
The most common types of malicious or criminal attacks include malware infections, criminal insiders, phishing/social
engineering and SQL injection.
23%
35%
42%
Malicious or criminal attack
System glitch
Human factor
143
109
107
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
Malicious or criminal attack System glitch Human factor


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Seven factors that influence the cost of data breach. We identified seven factors that
influence the cost consequences of a data breach incident. These attributes are as follows:
! The company had an incident management plan. Twenty-six percent of organizations in
our benchmark sample had a data breach incident management plan in place at the time of
the data breach event.
! The company had a relatively strong security posture at the time of the incident.
Thirty-five percent of organizations had a security effectiveness score (SES) at or above the
normative average. We measured the security posture of each participating company using
the Security Effective Score (SES) as part of the benchmarking process.
5

! CISO (or equivalent title) has overall responsibility for enterprise data protection.
Thirty-two percent of organizations have centralized the management of data protection with
the appointment of a C-level information security professional.
! Data was lost due to third party error. Thirty-nine percent of organizations had a data
breach caused by a third party, such as vendors, outsourcers and business partners.
! The company notified data breach victims quickly. Thirty-two percent of organizations
notified data breach victims within 30 days after the discovery of data loss or theft.
! The data breach involved lost or stolen devices. Forty-two percent of organizations had a
data breach as a result of a lost or stolen mobile device, which included laptops, desktops,
smartphones, tablets, servers and USB drives containing confidential or sensitive information.
! Consultants were engaged to help remediate the data breach. Twenty-three percent of
organizations hired consultants to assist in their data breach response and remediation.

As shown in Figure 7, a strong security posture, incident response plans, CISO appointments and
consulting support decreased the per capita cost of data breach. However, third party errors,
quick notification and lost or stolen devices increased the per capita cost of data breach. Hence,
a strong security posture reduced the average cost of data breach from R$116 to R$97
(decreased cost = R$19). In contrast, a third party error increased the average cost to as much
as R$136 (increased cost = R$20).

Figure 7. Impact of seven factors on the per capita cost of data breach
Measured in R$



5
The Security Effectiveness Score was developed by Ponemon Institute in its annual encryption trends survey to define
the security posture of responding organizations. The SES is derived from the rating of 24 security features or practices.
This method has been validated from more than 40 independent studies conducted since June 2005. The SES provides a
range of +2 (most favorable) to -2 (least favorable). Hence, a result greater than zero is viewed as net favorable.
(19)
(11)
(6)
(5)
6
11
20
(25) (20) (15) (10) (5) - 5 10 15 20 25
Strong security posture
Incident response plan
CISO appointment
Consultants engaged
Quick notification
Lost or stolen devices
Third party error


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The more records lost, the higher the cost of the data breach. Figure 8 shows the
relationship between the total cost of data breach and the size of the incident for 31 benchmarked
companies in ascending order by the size of the breach incident. The regression line clearly
indicates that the size of the data breach incident and total costs are linearly related. In this years
study, the cost ranged from R$.23 million to R$9.7 million.

Figure 8. Total cost of data breach by size of the data breach
Regression = Intercept + {Size of Breach Event} x !, where ! denotes the slope.
Measured in R$


The more churn, the higher the per capita cost of data breach. Figure 9 reports the
distribution of per capita data breach costs in ascending rate of abnormal churn. The regression
line is upward sloping, which suggests that abnormal churn and per capita costs are linearly
related. This pattern of results is consistent with benchmark studies completed in other countries.

Figure 9. Distribution of abnormal churn rates in ascending order by per capita costs
Regression = Intercept + {abnormal churn rate) x !, where ! denotes the slope.
Measured in R$

9,735,941
-
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000
12,000,000
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31
Ascending order by the size of data breach
Total Regression
220
0
50
100
150
200
250
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31
Ascending order by abnormal churn rate
Per Capita Regression


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Certain industries are more vulnerable to churn. Figure 10 reports the abnormal churn rate of
benchmarked organizations for the present study. While a small sample size prevents us from
generalizing the affect of industry on abnormal churn rates, our results show marked variation
wherein financial, communications and service organizations experienced relatively high
abnormal churn and public sector and retail companies experienced a very low abnormal churn
rate.
6


The implication of these findings is that industries with the highest churn rates could significantly
reduce the costs of a data breach by putting an emphasis on customer retention and activities to
preserve reputation and brand value.

Figure 10. Abnormal churn rates by industry classification of benchmarked companies



6
Public sector organizations utilize a different churn framework given that customers of government
organizations typically do not have an alternative choice.
0.0%
0.6%
1.2%
1.4%
1.4%
1.5%
1.9%
2.1%
3.6%
4.1%
5.1%
0.0% 1.0% 2.0% 3.0% 4.0% 5.0% 6.0%
Public sector
Retail
Transportation
Energy
Consumer
Technology
Pharmaceutical
Industrial
Services
Communications
Financial


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Detection and escalation costs. Figure 11 shows costs associated with detection and
escalation of data breach incidents. Such costs typically include forensic and investigative
activities, assessment and audit services, crisis team management, and communications to
executive management and boards of directors. As noted, average detection and escalation costs
were R$.72 million, with a maximum value of R$2.93 million and a minimum value of R$.05
million.

Figure 11. Detection and escalation costs
R$1,000,000 omitted

Notification costs. Figure 12 reports the distribution of costs associated with notification
activities. Such costs typically include IT activities associated with the creation of contact
databases, determination of all regulatory requirements, engagement of outside experts, postal
expenditures, secondary contacts to mail or email bounce-backs and inbound communication set-
up. This years average notification cost was R$.11 million, with a maximum value of R$.35
million and a zero minimum.

Figure 12. Notification costs
R$1,000,000 omitted

0.05
0.72
2.93
-
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
Minimum Average Maximum
-
0.11
0.35
-
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.40
Minimum Average Maximum


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Post data breach costs. Figure 13 shows the distribution of costs associated with ex-post (after-
the-fact) activities. Such costs typically include help desk activities, inbound communications,
special investigative activities, remediation activities, legal expenditures, product discounts,
identity protection services and regulatory interventions. Average ex-post response cost was
R$.79 million, with a maximum value of R$2.60 million and only a nominal minimum value.

Figure 13. Ex-post response costs
R$1,000,000 omitted


Lost business costs. Figure 14 reports lost business costs associated with data breach
incidents experienced by Brazilian companies. Such costs include the abnormal turnover of
customers, increased customer acquisition activities, reputation losses and diminished goodwill.
The average lost business cost for benchmarked organizations was R$1.03 million, with a
maximum value of R$4.17 million and only a nominal minimum value.

Figure 14. Lost business costs
R$1,000,000 omitted


0.02
0.79
2.60
-
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
Minimum Average Maximum
0.01
1.03
4.17
-
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
Minimum Average Maximum


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Direct and indirect costs of data breach. Direct costs refer to the direct expense outlay to
accomplish a given activity such as engaging forensic experts, hiring a law firm or offering victims
identity protection services. Indirect costs include the time, effort and other organizational
resources spent. This includes using existing employees to help in the data breach notification
efforts or in the investigation of the incident. Indirect costs also include the loss of goodwill and
customer churn.

Figure 15 reports the direct and indirect cost components of a data breach on a per capita basis.
The direct cost per compromised record was R$68 or 59 percent of per capita cost. Indirect
cost was R$47 per record or 41 percent of per capita cost.

Figure 15. Direct and indirect per capita data breach cost
Measured in R$


68
47
-
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Direct (59%) Indirect (41%)


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Preventive measures taken after the breach

In addition to measuring specific cost activities relating to the data breach incident, we report in
Table 1 the preventive measures implemented by companies soon after the event. The most
popular preventive measures and controls implemented after the data breach are: additional
manual procedures and controls (52 percent), training and awareness programs (40 percent),
identity and access management programs (27 percent) and security certification or audit (26
percent).


Table 1. Preventive measures and controls implemented after the data breach incident Pct%
Additional manual procedures and controls 52%
Training and awareness programs 40%
Identity and access management solutions 27%
Security certification or audit 26%
Expanded use of encryption 25%
Strengthening of perimeter controls 19%
Data loss prevention (DLP) solutions 19%
Endpoint security solutions 18%
Security intelligence systems 15%
Other system control practices 11%
*Please note that a company may be implementing more than one preventive measure.



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Additional cost categories

Table 2 reports 11 cost categories on a percentage basis compiled from 31 benchmarked
companies. The three highest cost categories include: lost customer business, investigations and
forensics and audit and consulting services.

Table 2. Percentage data breach cost categories Pct%
Investigations & forensics 24%
Audit and consulting services 15%
Outbound contact costs 3%
Inbound contact costs 3%
Public relations/communications 3%
Legal services defense 6%
Legal services compliance 5%
Free or discounted services 7%
Identity protection services 1%
Lost customer business 25%
Customer acquisition cost 8%




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Part 3. Observations and description about participating companies

We conclude that companies efforts in improving their data protection practices can be
beneficial. The most profitable investments, as evidenced by the lower cost of a data breach are:
a strong security posture, incident response plans, the appointment of a CISO with enterprise-
wide responsibility and use of outside consultants.

We hope this study helps to understand what the potential costs of a data breach could be based
upon certain characteristics and how best to allocate resources to the prevention, detection and
resolution of a data breach. Specifically, the study also reveals the severe financial
consequences from malicious or criminal acts. These data breaches can prove to be the most
costly.

Figure 16 shows the distribution of benchmark organizations by their primary industry
classification. In this years study, 11 industries are represented. The largest sector is financial
services, which includes banks, insurance, investment management and payment processors.
The second and third largest segments are services and consumer products, respectively.

Figure 16. Distribution of the benchmark sample by industry segment





19%
16%
13%
13%
10%
10%
7%
3%
3%
3%
3%
Financial
Services
Consumer
Public sector
Industrial
Retail
Technology
Communications
Energy
Pharmaceutical
Transportation


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Part 4. How we calculate the cost of data breach

Our study addresses core process-related activities that drive a range of expenditures associated
with an organizations data breach detection, response, containment and remediation. The four
cost centers are:

! Detection or discovery: Activities that enable a company to reasonably detect the breach of
personal data either at risk (in storage) or in motion.

! Escalation: Activities necessary to report the breach of protected information to appropriate
personnel within a specified time period.

! Notification: Activities that enable the company to notify data subjects with a letter, outbound
telephone call, e-mail or general notice that personal information was lost or stolen.

! Ex-post response: Activities to help victims of a breach communicate with the company to
ask additional questions or obtain recommendations in order to minimize potential harms.
Redress activities also include ex-post response such as credit report monitoring or the
reissuing of a new account (or credit card).

In addition to the above process-related activities, most companies experience opportunity costs
associated with the breach incident, which results from diminished trust or confidence by present
and future customers. Accordingly, our Institutes research shows that the negative publicity
associated with a data breach incident causes reputation effects that may result in abnormal
turnover or churn rates as well as a diminished rate for new customer acquisitions.

To extrapolate these opportunity costs, we use a cost estimation method that relies on the
lifetime value of an average customer as defined for each participating organization.

! Turnover of existing customers: The estimated number of customers who will most likely
terminate their relationship as a result of the breach incident. The incremental loss is
abnormal turnover attributable to the breach incident. This number is an annual percentage,
which is based on estimates provided by management during the benchmark interview
process.
7


! Diminished customer acquisition: The estimated number of target customers who will not
have a relationship with the organization as a consequence of the breach. This number is
provided as an annual percentage.

We acknowledge that the loss of non-customer data, such as employee records, may not impact
an organizations churn or turnover.
8
In these cases, we would expect the business cost category
to be lower when data breaches do not involve customer or consumer data (including payment
transactional information).


7
In several instances, turnover is partial, wherein breach victims still continued their relationship with the
breached organization, but the volume of customer activity actually declines. This partial decline is
especially salient in certain industries such as financial services or public sector entities where
termination is costly or economically infeasible.

8
In this study, we consider citizen, patient and student information as customer data.


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Benchmark methods

All participating organizations experienced one or more data breach incidents sometime over the
past year. Our benchmark instrument captured descriptive information from IT, compliance and
information security practitioners about the full cost impact of a breach involving the loss or theft
of customer or consumer information. It also required these practitioners to estimate opportunity
costs associated with program activities.

Estimated data breach cost components were captured on a rating form. In most cases, the
researcher conducted follow-up interviews to obtain additional facts, including estimated
abnormal churn rates that resulted from the companys most recent breach event involving 1,000
or more compromised records.
9


Data collection methods did not include actual accounting information, but instead relied upon
numerical estimation based on the knowledge and experience of each participant. Within each
category, cost estimation was a two-stage process. First, the benchmark instrument required
individuals to rate direct cost estimates for each cost category by marking a range variable
defined in the following number line format.

How to use the number line: The number line provided under each data breach cost category is one way to
obtain your best estimate for the sum of cash outlays, labor and overhead incurred. Please mark only one
point somewhere between the lower and upper limits set above. You can reset the lower and upper limits
of the number line at any time during the interview process.

Post your estimate of direct costs here for [presented cost category]

LL ______________________________________|___________________________________ UL



The numerical value obtained from the number line rather than a point estimate for each
presented cost category preserved confidentiality and ensured a higher response rate. The
benchmark instrument also required practitioners to provide a second estimate for indirect and
opportunity costs, separately.

The scope of data breach cost items contained within our benchmark instrument was limited to
known cost categories that applied to a broad set of business operations that handle personal
information. We believed that a study focused on business process and not data protection or
privacy compliance activities would yield a better quality of results.





9
Our sampling criteria only included companies experiencing a data breach between 1,000 and 100,000 lost
or stolen records sometime during the past 12 months. We excluded catastrophic data breach incidents to
avoid skewing overall sample findings.


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Figure 17 illustrates the activity-based costing schema used in our benchmark study. The cost
centers we examine sequentially are: incident discovery, escalation, notification, ex-post
response and lost business.

Figure 17: Schema of the data breach process



Within each cost center, the research instrument required subjects to estimate a cost range to
capture estimates of direct cost, indirect cost and opportunity cost, defined as follows:
! Direct cost the direct expense outlay to accomplish a given activity.
! Indirect cost the amount of time, effort and other organizational resources spent, but not as
a direct cash outlay.
! Opportunity cost the cost resulting from lost business opportunities as a consequence of
negative reputation effects after the breach has been reported to victims (and publicly
revealed to the media).
To maintain complete confidentiality, the benchmark instrument did not capture any company-
specific information. Subject materials contained no tracking codes or other methods that could
link responses to participating companies.

To keep the benchmarking process to a manageable size, we carefully limited items to only those
cost activity centers that we considered crucial to data breach cost measurement. Based upon
discussions with learned experts, the final set of items included a fixed set of cost activities. Upon
collection of the benchmark information, each instrument was re-examined carefully for
consistency and completeness.



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Part 5. Limitations

Our study utilizes a confidential and proprietary benchmark method that has been successfully
deployed in earlier research. However, there are inherent limitations with this benchmark
research that need to be carefully considered before drawing conclusions from findings.

! Non-statistical results: Our study draws upon a representative, non-statistical sample of 31
Brazilian organizations experiencing a breach involving the loss or theft of customer or
consumer records during the past 12 months. Statistical inferences, margins of error and
confidence intervals cannot be applied to these data given that our sampling methods are not
scientific.

! Non-response: The current findings are based on a small representative sample of
benchmarks. Thirty-one companies completed the benchmark process. Non-response bias
was not tested so it is always possible companies that did not participate are substantially
different in terms of underlying data breach cost.

! Sampling-frame bias: Because our sampling frame is judgmental, the quality of results is
influenced by the degree to which the frame is representative of the population of companies
being studied. It is our belief that the current sampling frame is biased toward companies
with more mature privacy or information security programs.

! Company-specific information: The benchmark information is sensitive and confidential.
Thus, the current instrument does not capture company-identifying information. It also allows
individuals to use categorical response variables to disclose demographic information about
the company and industry category.

! Unmeasured factors: To keep the interview script concise and focused, we decided to omit
other important variables from our analyses such as leading trends and organizational
characteristics. The extent to which omitted variables might explain benchmark results
cannot be determined.

! Extrapolated cost results. The quality of benchmark research is based on the integrity of
confidential responses provided by respondents in participating companies. While certain
checks and balances can be incorporated into the benchmark process, there is always the
possibility that respondents did not provide accurate or truthful responses. In addition, the
use of cost extrapolation methods rather than actual cost data may inadvertently introduce
bias and inaccuracies.



Ponemon Institute Research Report Page 21

Appendix 1: Cost for 31 Data Breach Case Studies

Cases
Size of
breach
Detection &
escalation* Notification*
Ex-post
response*
Lost
business* Total*
1 7,953 349,178 13,907 204,330 85,866 653,281
2 14,608 531,416 60,857 189,727 10,689 792,689
3 16,173 269,351 214,494 328,870 9,161 821,876
4 4,777 222,266 80,328 25,854 27,007 355,455
5 22,852 569,121 3,243 456,889 44,436 1,073,689
6 17,904 259,780 192,944 400,016 11,102 863,842
7 23,369 912,090 7,071 80,679 652,358 1,652,198
8 18,939 405,608 - 617,902 593,871 1,617,381
9 3,682 299,750 11,442 191,945 215,676 718,813
10 16,634 369,976 4,058 523,557 527,295 1,424,886
11 5,262 166,532 30,599 105,635 134,525 437,291
12 13,716 244,824 140,508 677,171 569,267 1,631,770
13 14,710 194,149 134,084 734,778 371,750 1,434,761
14 12,174 283,636 22,101 794,639 1,035,559 2,135,935
15 2,348 45,425 37,984 21,938 124,341 229,688
16 13,132 273,609 49,330 1,002,528 643,676 1,969,143
17 15,886 384,782 - 424,237 935,503 1,744,522
18 18,679 925,431 86,002 302,265 1,131,551 2,445,249
19 23,720 226,682 52,031 599,389 590,394 1,468,496
20 17,806 451,666 99,697 323,912 726,152 1,601,427
21 31,106 764,560 217,977 953,807 1,890,092 3,826,436
22 35,772 998,181 239,063 1,119,147 2,865,637 5,222,028
23 15,786 529,155 82,742 515,214 1,188,625 2,315,736
24 16,117 519,744 119,651 397,152 1,103,527 2,140,074
25 30,448 1,098,265 168,811 1,590,213 2,409,497 5,266,786
26 35,880 1,235,487 129,526 1,331,742 1,213,472 3,910,227
27 89,442 2,929,738 141,929 2,494,693 4,169,581 9,735,941
28 31,659 538,763 274,777 1,923,798 2,053,187 4,790,525
29 69,883 2,241,084 178,325 1,768,290 2,971,527 7,159,226
30 31,984 2,751,674 346,780 1,820,369 2,124,673 7,043,496
31 35,852 1,233,683 149,618 2,595,268 1,496,529 5,475,098
Measured in R$



Ponemon Institute Research Report Page 22





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