Data breach costs projected to hit $2 trillion in 2019

New research from Juniper suggests that the annual cost of data breaches will top $2 trillion in 2019, the brunt of it striking North America.

“While it is responsible for under 80% of global criminal data breaches, the high-value nature of US breaches means they account for over 90% of the global cost of data breaches,” stated UK-based Juniper Research. “We assume that the cost-per-record is going to increase in future, as more sensitive data is stored online as a matter of course.”

Juniper attributed the rising costs to not only more online data, but an expected increase in the malware targeting mobile devices.

“Despite the increasing prevalence of smartphones and other connected devices worldwide, traditional computing remains the focus of most cybercrime,” said the firm. “A report published by Kindsight highlights that mobile malware is comparatively rare, with an estimated infection rate of 0.68% of the smartphone installed base in 2014. This is due to a combination of limited profitability for cybercriminals (with no guarantee of valuable details through the hack) and the need to develop a sophisticated understanding of mobile software, which is still relatively new and evolving at a much faster rate than that observed for desktop PCs.”

Juniper added, “However, smartphones will be the most common mobile device targeted by cybercriminals, as there is virtually no Internet of Things-based malware available. Mobile malware will remain a relatively small proportion of the overall malware in circulation until truly cross-platform OSs (Operating Systems), particularly Windows-based cross-platform Oss, are introduced.”