More Than Half Of Companies Have Experienced Multiple Breaches, Study Says

The majority of U.S. enterprises have experienced two or more breaches in the past 12 months, according to a published this week.

According to a survey of 583 U.S. IT security practitioners conducted by Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Juniper Networks, more than half of respondents (59 percent) said they have had two or more breaches in the past 12 months, while 10 percent do not know. Ninety percent of organizations said they have had at least one breach.

When asked to consider cash outlays, internal labor, overhead, revenue losses, and other expenses related to a single security breach, 41 percent of respondents reported they spent $500,000 or more. Sixteen percent said they were not able to determine the amount.

As a result of these multiple breaches, more than one-third (34 percent) of respondents said they have low confidence in the ability of their organizations' IT infrastructure to prevent a network security breach, Ponemon said. Money is part of the problem: Fifty-two percent of respondents said 10 percent or less of their IT budget is dedicated to security alone.

Almost half (48 percent) cited complexity as one of their biggest challenges to implementing network security solutions, according to the study. The same percentage (48 percent) said resource constraints are their biggest challenge.

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