The Price of Insecurity

A recent article on the SANS web site investigated the costs associated with a security breach at Idaho State University.

John Pescatore reports that a breach at ISU's Pocatello Family Medicine Clinic is likely to cost the university $1 million over a 2-year period.

By comparison, implementing best practices in the infrastructure is likely to have defeated the attack, and would have cost around $75k. Even an aggressive security posture is estimated by Pescatore to have cost about $500k total.

Many organizations look at the costs of security breaches, but few consider the TCO related to avoiding a major breach.