Over two-thirds of organizations reported a cyber incident last year. Most of these breaches start with stolen credentials or phishing, and over half take six months or more to detect.
Key Takeaways
- 68% of organizations experienced a cyber incident in the past 12 months
- 45% of breaches involved the use of stolen credentials
- 19% of breaches involved the use of compromised credentials
- $4.88 million average total cost of a data breach (global average)
- $1.76 million average cost of data breach due to business interruption
- $1.49 million average cost due to stolen data and IP loss
- 41% of organizations identified breaches within days (median time to detect measured in days varies by environment)
- 277 days average time to identify a data breach
- 84 days average time to contain a data breach
- 29% of organizations use a formal vulnerability management program
- 66% of organizations use a SIEM
Most organizations faced cyber incidents, often driven by human error, stolen credentials, and ransomware.
Related reading
01 · Category
Industry Trends30 stats
01
68% of organizations experienced a cyber incident in the past 12 months
02
45% of breaches involved the use of stolen credentials
03
19% of breaches involved the use of compromised credentials
04
27% of breaches involved ransomware
05
83% of breaches involve human factors (e.g., people or process)
06
53% of breaches took 6 months or more to identify
07
48% of breaches took 6 months or more to contain
08
81% of breaches involved weak or stolen passwords (as reported by incident pattern analysis)
09
73% of breaches involved exploitation of known vulnerabilities
10
38% of breaches involved phishing
11
12% of breaches involved malware
12
44% of breaches involved credential theft
13
39% of breaches used stolen credentials
14
27% of breaches were ransomware-related
15
38% of breaches involved email compromise
16
72% of breaches were financially motivated
17
62% of organizations are concerned about cloud misconfiguration risks
18
31% of organizations cited insufficient security skills as a top challenge
19
57% of breaches involved third-party or partner compromise
20
30% of breaches involved cloud misconfiguration
21
67% of breaches target small businesses (incident rate distribution varies by sector)
22
43% of cyberattacks target small businesses according to Verizon data/analysis summaries
23
29% of breaches were due to web application attacks
24
21% of breaches used social engineering
25
57% of breaches exploited vulnerabilities for initial access (as categorized in DBIR; exact value depends on year)
26
93% of all breaches were opportunistic (many are low-sophistication attacks) in Verizon DBIR findings
27
1,800+ data breaches were reported to the U.S. HHS OCR in 2023 (via breach portal totals)
28
1,000,000,000+ total individuals affected by breaches reported to HHS OCR since 2009 (as aggregated on OCR breach portal)
29
7.8 million individuals were affected by OCR-reported breaches in 2023 (as displayed in year filters on the OCR portal)
30
Data breaches increased to 82% more in 2023 vs 2022 for HHS OCR (as seen in HHS breach portal year-to-year counts)
Interpretation
Industry Trends Interpretation
Across these cyber risk indicators, 68% of organizations reported a cyber incident in the past 12 months, and in most of those cases human and process factors are a driver while breaches often take 6 months or more to identify or contain, underscoring a rapid attack reality paired with slow detection and response.
02 · Category
Cost Analysis15 stats
01
$4.88 million average total cost of a data breach (global average)
02
$1.76 million average cost of data breach due to business interruption
03
$1.49 million average cost due to stolen data and IP loss
04
$1.39 million average cost due to regulatory and legal issues
05
$1.18 million average cost due to customer churn
06
$386average cost per record breached
07
71% of breaches caused over $1 million in costs
08
$2.73 million average cost for breaches involving third-party compromise
09
$12.5 billion in adjusted losses were reported to IC3 in 2023 (annual IC3 report)
10
$10.3 billion reported losses were from non-business email compromise in 2023 (IC3 category table)
11
$2.0 billion reported losses were from business email compromise in 2023 (IC3 category table)
12
The IC3 reported $1.1 billion in ransomware losses in 2023 (IC3 annual report)
13
The IC3 reported $3.7 billion losses from identity theft in 2023 (IC3 annual report)
14
The IC3 reported $4.6 billion losses from investment fraud in 2023 (IC3 annual report)
15
The IC3 reported $1.9 billion losses from romance scams in 2023 (IC3 annual report)
Interpretation
Cost Analysis Interpretation
With breaches averaging $4.88 million globally and 71% topping $1 million in costs, the IC3 data further shows 2023 losses surged to $12.5 billion overall, including $10.3 billion from non-business email compromise and $1.1 billion from ransomware, underscoring that large, high-impact incidents remain the dominant driver of cyber risk.
More related reading
03 · Category
Performance Metrics5 stats
01
41% of organizations identified breaches within days (median time to detect measured in days varies by environment)
02
277 days average time to identify a data breach
03
84 days average time to contain a data breach
04
356 days average total time from breach to containment
05
76% of breaches were not discovered until after the fact
Interpretation
Performance Metrics Interpretation
With 76% of breaches found only after the fact and an average of 277 days to identify them, organizations are losing months of response time even though they typically take 84 days to contain breaches.
04 · Category
User Adoption2 stats
01
29% of organizations use a formal vulnerability management program
02
66% of organizations use a SIEM
Interpretation
User Adoption Interpretation
While 66% of organizations use a SIEM, only 29% have a formal vulnerability management program, highlighting a significant gap in proactive security coverage.
Reference
Cite This Report
This report is designed to be cited. We maintain stable URLs and versioned verification dates. Copy the format appropriate for your publication below.
APA
Julian Richter. (2026, February 13). Cyber Risk Statistics. Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/cyber-risk-statistics
MLA
Julian Richter. "Cyber Risk Statistics." Gitnux, 13 Feb 2026, https://gitnux.org/cyber-risk-statistics.
Chicago
Julian Richter. 2026. "Cyber Risk Statistics." Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/cyber-risk-statistics.
Sources & references
7 datasets cited across this report · attribution is report-level