When it comes to pointing fingers at who is to blame for major security breaches, maybe we should look back at ourselves first.
That's because according to Symantec's eighth annual Cost of a Data Breach report, mistakes made by employees lead to nearly two-thirds of data breaches.
The security giant argued in the report that while analysis and criticism about recent data breaches often focus on the methods of malicious attackers, critics often overlook (much to our detriment) the human factor.
Obviously, such mistakes — and the repetitiveness and negligence associated with them — are very expensive.
According to the study, the average number of breached records per organization was 23,647 with an average cost range of $130 to $136 per record.
Those costs were found to be much higher in Germany and the United States, where the averages jumped to $188 and $199, respectively.
Some other important lessons to learn from the report:
For reference, Symantec commissioned the Ponemon Institute to conduct the study over the course of 2012.
The independent research firm surveyed more than 1,400 people at 277 global organizations across the following nine countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, India, Italy, Japan, and Brazil.