EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Data is one of the most important and valuable assets for businesses. It functions as a guiding light, helping leaders see around corners, make transformative strategy decisions, stay uber competitive, and deliver better tangible business outcomes. In some cases, data is as elevated and celebrated as revenue, customer service excellence, and profitability.

However, data is uniquely vulnerable to an unintended effect of the rapid shift to digitization and the cloud; the data breach epidemic. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a dizzying number of organizations have been experiencing a disturbing number of data breaches.

In 2022, a total of 4,100 publicly disclosed data breaches led to the exposure of approximately 22 billion records.  In response, Check Point Field CISO, Deryck Mitchelson says, “For me, it feels as though we are growing numb to all of this…What we’re forgetting is that on the back of these breaches, it’s your data, it’s my data that is being compromised.”

When it comes to contending with the complexity of data ecosystems and data protection, most organizations are under-prepared. As a result, we’re seeing that consumers are willing to vote with their digital footprints. The story is in the statistics, below.

Global data privacy trends and statistics (2023)

1. 45% of websites use some type cookie tracking set-up.
2. Data collection can yield as much as a 4% increase in revenue, which can translate to billion of dollars for some of the largest multi-national companies.
3. 81% of survey respondents say that the way an organization treats personal data is “indicative of how it views and respects its customers.”
4. 84% of customers are more loyal to brands that have strong security controls.
5. 76% of consumers would not make purchases from a company that they did not trust with their data.
6. 37% of consumers say they have already switched companies or providers to better protect their privacy – up from 34% two years ago.
7. 58% of organizations don’t acknowledge data breach disclosures. According to a Comparitech study, 23% of organizations responded to data breach disclosures within a day, 12% of organizations responded within two days, and two percent within three days. Five percent took 17 days to respond. More than half (58%) never sent a response at all.
8. 62% of Americans don’t believe it’s possible to experience a normal day of life without companies collecting data about them.
9. The average data breach in the U.S. costs 4.2 million, according to an IBM report.
10. A hacker strikes every 39 seconds.
11. In a PwC survey, 87% of business leaders stated that they believed their consumers trust their company.
12. In contrast, just 30% of consumers in the same PwC survey stated that they have a high level of trust in companies.

Data breach trends and statistics: Insights

Earn consumer trust by avoiding data breaches. Second-only to industry conditions, levels of consumer trust are the next biggest determinant of an organization’s market performance.

According to one study, roughly three weeks after a given company breach was made public, company share prices dropped by 3.5 percent (on average). A year after a breach, affected companies under-performed the NASDAQ by 8.6 percent. After three years, companies continued to under-perform the market by more than 15 percent.

Data breach trends and statistics: Consumer perspective

For consumers, digital data collection, sharing, analysis and privacy are difficult to understand. Thirty-five years ago, there weren’t smartphones or laptops emitting location data. Cameras weren’t built into nearly every technological device. Everyday devices couldn’t easily be misused or misrepresented to consumers in relation to unwanted tracking, data collection and subsequent possible identity theft.

To respect data is to respect your end-consumers and your business growth potential.

In conclusion

Data privacy and security can be incredibly technical and complex. But in failing to protect your data and your reputation in the eyes of consumers, you might experience a nightmare.

Be a #dataprivacyweek advocate

Data Privacy Week is January 22 – 28th. Share these #dataprivacyweek tweets with your network.

Learn more about how to champion data privacy within your organization. See 10 data privacy tips to protect your organization this year. Also check out this executive-level insights article.

Lastly, don’t miss registration for the most important cyber security event of 2023; CPX 360. Register here.