The 2025 IBM Cost of Data Breach Report is out, and it leads with something that would usually be a piece of good news: global data breach costs are down for the first time in five years. There are a couple of big asterisks attached to this news, however.
The average cost of data breach spiked 10% to $4.88 million, and that number jumps to $5.17 million when stolen data was found in public cloud storage.
MGM expects a little over $100 million in total cost from the ransomware attack, but that most or all of that will be covered. The company also said that most of that financial damage came from loss of hotel bookings during the extended recovery period.
The latest IBM Cost of Data Breach report reveals that the damage done by security incidents is up yet again, continuing to climb (at least a little) year over year and set new records.
Organizations are increasingly realizing the cost of data breach a year (or more) after the incident, with the biggest expenses coming in the form of fines from governments and lawsuits from consumers that were negatively impacted. Long-term reputational damage is also a consideration.