Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

In February 2009, the Ponemon Institute published the results of its inaugural study "Germany - 2008 Annual Study: Cost of a Data Breach."  The study is the first such research study undertaken in Germany, using data from actual incidents to estimate the costs of dealing with data breaches by German companies.  The study examined the experience of 18 German organizations that suffered a breach.  These case studies reviewed ranged in size an incident involving less than 3,750 records to an incident involving more than 90,000 records.  The breaches reviewed occurred across ten industry sectors.

According to the study, the average cost of a data breach in Germany is €112 per compromised record.  The total cost of handling the breaches ranged from €267,000  to €6.75 million, the average being over €2.41 million.