by Dr. Daniele Bianchi and Dr. Onur Tosun
Security breaches and hacking cost publicly traded companies billions of dollars annually in stolen assets, lost business, and damaged reputations. Although detailed data are difficult to collate, the 2017’s annual Cost of Data Breach Study run by the Ponemon Institute for IBM estimated that the average per-capita cost of data breaches reached an all-time high of $225 (a 60% increase over the last decade). This is as much of a concern for businesses as it is for regulators.
As a matter of fact, the knock-on effect of a data breach can substantially affect a company’s reputation, resulting in abnormal customer turnover and loss of goodwill, which in turn affect firms’ policies and ultimately revenues and profits. For this reason, companies are often reluctant to reveal information about security breaches due to fear of both short-term and long-term market reactions.