Data Breach Impacts and Top Prevention Strategies

In the today’s data-driven society, corporate security breaches have the power and capacity to impact mass amounts of technology users at a time. In fact, some of the most sizable security data breaches have taken place during the past decade. Forbes Advisor examined the data taken from FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) between 2017 to 2021 to uncover the following two points: which of the 50 U.S. states had the most corporate breaches, and which U.S. state had the highest amount of cost lost. 

A Look at Forbes Advisor’s Data Findings

Forbes Advisor sifted through data findings collected on June 6, 2022, from the Internet Crime Complaint Center to determine a comprehensive account of corporate data breaches occurring from 2017 to 2021. Every internet complaint made between those five years for all 50 states were combined and further analyzed. After extracting the corporate data breach information from the report, Forbes Advisor grouped the findings together and ranked them from the highest to lowest in each state. In addition, the average financial losses for each data breach were computed and ranked from most expensive to lease expensive. 
 
Here are the top five ranking states in terms of security data breaches and financial losses, according to Forbes Advisor:
 
1. California, with a total corporate victim count of 1,807 breaches, costing the state over $80 million within the past five years
2. Florida, with 956 businesses falling victim to data breaches with nearly $58 million in losses
3. Texas, with a total of 1,587 businesses experiencing data breaches. Even though Texas had more businesses affected by breaches, it ranks lower than Florida with a lesser total of nearly $50 million in business losses. 
4. New York, with 705 corporate data breaches and over $38 million in business losses between 2017 and 2021
5. Pennsylvania, with close to $18 million in financial losses and a corporate victim count of 380 

Data Breach Impacts and Prevention Strategies

In the past five years, data breaches have affected 11,343 businesses in America alone, with losses totaling at $431,854,725. It is vital for companies to ensure their data is sufficiently protected. 
 
Rob Watts, a business editor at Forbes Advisor provides insight on keeping your company’s data safe and secure. He mentions human error as a major cause of data breaches, so it is critical that employees are well-informed and instinctive when it comes to detecting and deterring data threats. Watts also points out that reliable data protection comes from a strategic combination of the following three initiatives:

• The right software tools
• Employee knowledge on cyberthreats
• Established best practices in using company technology

The United States has faced considerable monetary losses as a result of corporate data breaches. With percentages of losses increasing in many states, businesses are advised to take precautionary measures to keep their corporate data safe. Although there is no singular solution for protecting a company’s data, using a combination of strategic software tools and educational initiatives can assist in the prevention of security data breaches.