Data breaches can cost companies up to $7per incident in the U.S., according to recent statistics. With the new Heartbleed Bug roaming the Internet (so to speak), individuals and businesses could be at greater risk than ever before. A flaw exists in a popular encryption service that is designed to protect users’ sensitive data as it is sent to the necessary computer servers. This flaw can result in the Heartbleed Bug decrypting and stealing passwords, logins and other data. Then, by setting up a “spoof” site, hackers could exploit that information.

In most cases, we think of data breaches affecting finances. Hackers uncover credit card or bank account numbers and steal money from people who have visited a specific website. But data breaches can also result in viruses, malaware and file corruption that can result in lost data.

The costs of a data breach can come in three forms: 

Actual financial loss (for your firm or your customers)
Lost sales due to lost consumer confidence
Lost data

Let’s explore each of these.

Financial Loss
In most cases, users are protected and their bank or credit card will cover the financial loss resulting from credit card fraud. Nonetheless, if a data breach hacks your financial data, you could suffer direct losses which may or may not be fully covered by your company’s insurance or by your financial institutions.

Lost Consumer Confidence
This loss is much harder to quantify and, unfortunately, even harder to recover from. Whether you are a service provider, e-commerce site or brick-and-mortar store, customers may hesitate to do business with you if you’ve been the victim of a data breach. It can take a long time, and the proper security measures, to instill a sense of confidence in your consumer base again.

Data Loss
Finally, some breaches may result in corruption or deletion of files. Depending on the extent of the data loss, it may be difficult to recover financially from this type of loss, as well.

However, if you call a professional data recovery service like 24 Hour Data immediately upon discovering data loss, we can minimize your financial losses with a fast recovery, sometimes in as little as 24 hours. We’ll get your business back running quickly, so you can recover financially, faster.