Data protection is cheaper than a data breach

In May 2006, millions of U.S. military veterans were worried about risks for identity theft after their electronic records were stolen from the home of an agency employee. Data was saved on a laptop and the laptop was stolen. It contained names, Social Security numbers and birthdays of some 26.8 million veterans.

Speaking about this incident, the Gartner analyst Avivah Litan explained in a research note that data protection is cheaper than a data breach.

"A company with at least 10,000 accounts to protect can spend, in the first year, as little as $6 per customer account for just data encryption, or as much as $16 per customer account for data encryption, host-based intrusion prevention and strong security audits combined," Ms. Litan said. "This compares with an expenditure of at least $90 per customer account when data is compromised or exposed during a breach."