UK businesses: average cost of security breach 2024

Cyberattacks are potentially ruinous events for business owners. As of 2024, the average cost the most disruptive cyber security breach in the previous 12 months in the United Kingdom was 1,205 British pounds across all businesses, however, this figure becomes greater as the size of a business increases. The cost of a cyber attack is not only financial, with companies having to spend time on recovering from the attacks.

Methods of attack

Would-be cyber attackers have a large range of tools at their disposal, with which to get around a business’s digital defenses. Fraudulent emails or being directed to fraudulent websites was by far the most common method used during 2019, with 80 percent of security breaches coming in that form.

Preventing future attacks

Investing in new security technology is a key focus for European and American businesses. Most forms, of all sizes are committed to increasing their spending on cyber security.

Average total cost of the most disruptive cyber security breach for businesses in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2024 (in GBP)

Characteristic	Average cost in GBP
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Release date

April 2024

More information

Region

United Kingdom

Survey time period

September 7, 2023 to January 19, 2024

Number of respondents

1,006 respondents

Special properties

among UK businesses that identified a breach or attack in the last 12 months

Method of interview

Telephone interviews and online survey

Supplementary notes

The source adds the following information: 'We undertook a random probability telephone and online survey of 2,000 UK businesses, 1,004 UK registered charities and 430 education institutions from 7 September 2023 to 19 January 2024. The data for businesses and charities have been weighted to be statistically representative of these two populations. We carried out 44 in-depth interviews between December 2023 and January 2024, to gain further qualitative insights from some of the organisations that answered the survey. In addition, businesses with no IT capacity or online presence were deemed ineligible. These exclusions are consistent with previous years, and the survey is considered comparable across years.'
This statistic using original data from the Government Digital Service and includes copyright material licensed under © Crown, the Open Government License v3.0

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