While this technically isn’t gaming news, in the current circumstances – given the PSN outage – it’s interesting to note that a recent survey by Symantec, the company behind Norton Security, has stated that the cost of a breach like Sony has recently suffered can rise dramatically depending on the speed of the response.
Sony seems to be making all the right steps now, but to begin with they were heavily criticised for taking too long to inform customers that their personal details had been compromised.
According to the survey, a slow response results in a average cost per record of $141, while a fast response results is a cost of $106 per record.
If we were to cheekily estimate the PSN user base at 50 million – and suggest that Sony’s response did not respond quickly – that could, possibly, cost Sony an additional $1.7b.
Of course, these are just average numbers used as part of a survey – each situation is completely different and has it’s own set of circumstances.
That said, Symantec were explicit in their recommendation for increased scrutiny when it came to security.
“This report comes at a time when organisations in Australia and worldwide are under close scrutiny over the measures they have implemented to protect customer and corporate information,” said Craig Scroggie, vice president and managing director, Pacific region, Symantec. “It also highlights the need for legislative reforms that require companies to notify their customers of a data breach to be fast-tracked in Australia.
“We recommend that organisations take a security approach that minimises the likelihood and cost of breaches,” Scroggie added. “This involves reviewing existing policies and technologies to determine whether they deal adequately with sensitive data and proactively making changes as required.”
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