The Cost of Data Theft

The pice to Fix Data Theft: $7 Million and Counting
The theft of 57 unencrypted hard drives from BlueCross-BlueShield of Tennessee has given thieves access to personal data on upwards of 500,000 customers and is costing millions to fix, PCWorld reports. The drives contained recordings of more than one million customer support calls as well as 300,000 screen shots, which in some cases included names, birthdates and Social Security numbers. BlueCross is now auditing its security practices, the report states. The process of investigating the breach and notifying customers has cost more than $7 million so far. According to Michael Spinney of the Ponemon Institute, while the average data breach costs $6.75 million, the company could be paying much more due to the complexity of the breach.