As of 2024, the average data breach cost in the United Kingdom (UK) was around 4.53 million U.S. dollars. In the measured period, 2022 registered the highest cost for breached data, more than five million U.S. dollars. The figure, thus, has increased from 3.9 million U.S. dollars since 2020.

As of January 2024, about ** percent of organizations in the United Kingdom reported experiencing a data breach accident once a month. A further ** percent said they had encountered a data breach event less than once a month in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, ** percent said they had experienced a data breach incident once a week.

A survey conducted in the United Kingdom (UK) between August and December 2024, found that ** percent of companies needed additional staff time to deal with the breach or inform cutomers or stakeholders. Furthermore, ** percent of the companies needed to implement new measures for future attacks. Additionally, ** percent said the incident stopped the staff from carrying out daily work.

It started with a strange email. The kind you usually ignore. But for one midsize healthcare firm in Ohio, clicking that link changed everything. Within hours, sensitive patient records were encrypted, and hackers demanded payment in cryptocurrency. By the time IT figured out the breach, over 1.4 million records were...

This statistic displays the share of businesses that have had cyber security braches or attacks in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2019. Among all respondents, ** percent had breaches in the past 12 months. With respect to business size, ** percent of small firms experienced cyber security breaches in the past 12 months.Concerning the size of businesses, micro businesses had *** to **** employees, small businesses had ** to ** employees, medium businesses had ** to *** employees and large businesses had *** employees or more. On the other hand, there were many types of cyber security breaches experienced by businesses in the past 12 months such as malware.

The largest reported data leakage as of January 2025 was the Cam4 data breach in March 2020, which exposed more than 10 billion data records. The second-largest data breach in history so far, the Yahoo data breach, occurred in 2013. The company initially reported about one billion exposed data records, but after an investigation, the company updated the number, revealing that three billion accounts were affected. The National Public Data Breach was announced in August 2024. The incident became public when personally identifiable information of individuals became available for sale on the dark web. Overall, the security professionals estimate the leakage of nearly three billion personal records. The next significant data leakage was the March 2018 security breach of India's national ID database, Aadhaar, with over 1.1 billion records exposed. This included biometric information such as identification numbers and fingerprint scans, which could be used to open bank accounts and receive financial aid, among other government services.

Cybercrime - the dark side of digitalization As the world continues its journey into the digital age, corporations and governments across the globe have been increasing their reliance on technology to collect, analyze and store personal data. This, in turn, has led to a rise in the number of cyber crimes, ranging from minor breaches to global-scale attacks impacting billions of users – such as in the case of Yahoo. Within the U.S. alone, 1802 cases of data compromise were reported in 2022. This was a marked increase from the 447 cases reported a decade prior. The high price of data protection As of 2022, the average cost of a single data breach across all industries worldwide stood at around 4.35 million U.S. dollars. This was found to be most costly in the healthcare sector, with each leak reported to have cost the affected party a hefty 10.1 million U.S. dollars. The financial segment followed closely behind. Here, each breach resulted in a loss of approximately 6 million U.S. dollars - 1.5 million more than the global average.

As of 2024, ** percent of businesses that encountered the most disruptive cybersecurity breaches or attacks in the last 12 months in the United Kingdom (UK) reported them to banks, building societies, or credit card companies. A further **** percent reported it to the internet or network service provider.

This statistic illustrates the per capita cost of three root causes of the data breach in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2015. In 2015, malicious or criminal attacks have a average per capita cost of *** GBP.

Security breaches incurred by individuals

The number and type of information security breaches affecting UK businesses in 2012. Based on a survey of 1,402 UK businesses, carried out in four separate questionnaires.

As of January 2025, the most significant data privacy violation fine worldwide was for social media giant Meta. In May 2023, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) of Ireland decided to fine the company with 1.2 billion euros or 1.3 billion U.S. dollars. The Chinese vehicle-for rent company Didi Global ranked second. In July 2022, China's data privacy regulator fined the company 8.026 billion Chinese yuan, or 1.19 billion U.S. dollars. The 2021 Amazon fine issued by Luxembourg's data privacy regulation authorities was 877 million U.S. dollars and was the third-biggest data breach fine as of the measured month. The 2019 fine of 575 million U.S. dollars to Equifax followed. In this incident, because of unpatched vulnerabilities, nearly 150 million people were affected, which caused the American consumer credit reporting agency to pay at least 575 million U.S. dollars.

The Cyber Security Breaches Survey, 2023 (CSBS) was run to understand organisations' approaches and attitudes to cyber security, and to understand their experience of cyber security breaches. The aim of the survey was to support the Government by providing evidence that can inform policies which help to make Britain a safer place to do business online. Details of changes for the 2023 survey can be found in the Technical Annex documentation.

These surveys have been conducted annually since 2016 to understand the views of UK organisations on cyber security. Data are collected on topics including online use; attitudes of organisations to cyber security and awareness of Government initiatives; approaches to cyber security (including investment and processes); incidences and impact of a cyber security breach or attack; and how breaches are dealt with by the organisation. This information helps to inform Government policy towards organisations, including how best to target key messages to businesses and charities so that they are cyber secure (and so that the UK is the safest place in the world to do business online). The study is funded by the DSIT as part of the National Cyber Security Programme.

The underlying data are useful for researchers to better understand the response across a range of organisations and for wider comparability over time. The survey originally only covered businesses but was expanded to include charities from the 2018 survey onwards. From 2020, the survey includes a sample of education institutions (primary and secondary schools, further and higher education). Please note that the UK Data Service only holds data from 2018 onwards.

Further information and additional publications can be found on the GOV.UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2023 webpage.

Latest Edition Information
For the second edition (August 2023), the data file has been updated to correct an error with the variable COUNTRY. In the earlier version, some non-charity data had been mistakenly mapped to a country in this variable, which refers to charities sampled only. These respondents have now been recoded as -1 (missing).

The Cyber Security Breaches Survey, 2020 was run to understand organisations' approaches and attitudes to cyber security, and to understand their experience of cyber security breaches. Its aim was to support the Government by providing evidence that can inform policies which help to make Britain a safer place to do business online.The data have been collected annually since 2016 to understand the views of UK organisations on cyber security. Data is collected on topics including online use; attitudes of organisations to cyber security and awareness of Government initiatives; approaches to cyber security (including investment and processes); incidences and impact of a cyber security breach or attack; and how breaches are dealt with by the organisation. This information helps to inform Government policy towards organisations, including how best to target key messages to businesses and charities so that they are cyber secure (and so that the UK is the safest place in the world to do business online). The study is funded by the Cabinet Office as part of the National Cyber Security Programme. The underlying data are useful for researchers to better understand the response across a range of organisations (rather than averages) and for wider comparability over time. The survey originally only covered businesses but was expanded to include charities from the 2018 survey onwards. From 2020, the survey includes a sample of education institutions (primary and secondary schools, further and higher education). Please note that the UK Data Service only holds data from 2018 onwards. Further information and additional publications can be found on the GOV.UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey, 2020 webpage.

Views, experiences and behaviours of organisations (UK businesses and charities) on cyber security and cyber security breaches.

Range of data - cross compliance breaches passed to Rural Development Schemes to determine whether or not to apply reductions to Pillar 2 payments

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. The Cyber Security Breaches Survey, 2023 (CSBS) was run to understand organisations' approaches and attitudes to cyber security, and to understand their experience of cyber security breaches. The aim of the survey was to support the Government by providing evidence that can inform policies which help to make Britain a safer place to do business online. Details of changes for the 2023 survey can be found in the Technical Annex documentation. These surveys have been conducted annually since 2016 to understand the views of UK organisations on cyber security. Data are collected on topics including online use; attitudes of organisations to cyber security and awareness of Government initiatives; approaches to cyber security (including investment and processes); incidences and impact of a cyber security breach or attack; and how breaches are dealt with by the organisation. This information helps to inform Government policy towards organisations, including how best to target key messages to businesses and charities so that they are cyber secure (and so that the UK is the safest place in the world to do business online). The study is funded by the DSIT as part of the National Cyber Security Programme. The underlying data are useful for researchers to better understand the response across a range of organisations and for wider comparability over time. The survey originally only covered businesses but was expanded to include charities from the 2018 survey onwards. From 2020, the survey includes a sample of education institutions (primary and secondary schools, further and higher education). Please note that the UK Data Service only holds data from 2018 onwards. Further information and additional publications can be found on the GOV.UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2023 webpage.Latest Edition InformationFor the second edition (August 2023), the data file has been updated to correct an error with the variable COUNTRY. In the earlier version, some non-charity data had been mistakenly mapped to a country in this variable, which refers to charities sampled only. These respondents have now been recoded as -1 (missing). Main Topics: Organisational cyber security, views, experiences and behaviours of organisations (UK businesses and charities) on cyber security and cyber security breaches. Multi-stage stratified random sample

Staff vetting records system.

The Cyber Security Breaches Survey, (CSBS) is run to understand organisations' approaches and attitudes to cyber security, and to understand their experience of cyber security breaches.. The aim of the survey is to support the Government by providing evidence that can inform policies which help to make Britain a safer place to do business online.

These surveys have been conducted annually since 2016 to understand the views of UK organisations on cyber security. Data are collected on topics including online use; attitudes of organisations to cyber security and awareness of Government initiatives; approaches to cyber security (including investment and processes); incidences and impact of a cyber security breach or attack; and how breaches are dealt with by the organisation. This information helps to inform Government policy towards organisations, including how best to target key messages to businesses and charities so that they are cyber secure (and so that the UK is the safest place in the world to do business online). The study is funded by the DCMS as part of the government's £2.6 billion National Cyber Strategy 2022 to protect and promote the UK in cyber space.

The underlying data are useful for researchers to better understand the response across a range of organisations and for wider comparability over time. The survey originally only covered businesses but was expanded to include charities from the 2018 survey onwards. From 2020, the survey includes a sample of education institutions (primary and secondary schools, further and higher education). Please note that the UK Data Service only holds datasets on each specific year from 2018 onwards.

Cyber Security Breaches Survey: Combined Dataset, 2016-2022 includes data from 2016 to 2022. This is cross-sectional data only and not all variables are included in all years. For longitudinal data, please access the Cyber Security Longitudinal Survey: Wave 1, 2021 (available from the UK Data Archive under SN 8969) and onwards.

Further information and additional publications can be found on the GOV.UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey webpage.