The cost of the Equifax data breach has risen to more than $242 million, and that figure will continue to rise and could even double.
According to the Equifax financial report for the first quarter of 2018, the total spent on mitigation and preventative measures to avoid a further security breach is now $242.7 million.
The breach, which was made public in September 2017, affected 147.9 million customers, making it one of the largest data breaches ever discovered and certainly one of the most serious considering the types of data involved. Yahoo may have experienced much larger breaches, but the data exposed in those incidents was far less sensitive.
Fortunately for Equifax, it holds a sizable insurance policy against cybersecurity incidents. The policy will cover up to $125 million of the cost, minus a $7.5 million deductible. That insurance policy has already paid out $60 million, with $10 million in payments received in the first quarter of 2018.
The breakdown of cost of the Equifax data breach so far for Q1, 2018 is:
- $45.7 million on IT security
- $28.9 million on legal fees and investigation of the breach
- $4.1 million on product liability
- $10 million has been recovered from an insurance payout.
The net expenses from the breach in the first quarter of 2018 was $68.7 million. That is on top of the $114 million spent in the final quarter of 2017, which is broken down as $64.6 million on product costs and customer support, $99.4 million on professional fees, minus $50 million that was paid by its insurance carrier. The net spend so far for Q4, 2017 and Q1, 2018 is $140.5 million, although Equifax reports that the total costs related to the cybersecurity incident and incremental IT and data security costs has been $242.7 million.
Equifax has also reported that throughout 2018 and 2019 the firm will be investing heavily in IT and is committed to building an industry-leading data security system, although the firm has not disclosed how much it is expecting to spend, as the company does not have visibility into costs past 2018.
Equifax has predicted that there will be at least a further $275 million in expenses related to the cyberattack which must still be covered, although a further $57.5 million should be covered by its insurance policy.
While considerable costs have been incurred so far, the firm has done little to repair the reputational damage suffered as a result of the breach and has yet to hire many of the new staff it plans to bring in to help with the breach recovery, including a new CTO. The firm has said that it is taking a very aggressive approach in attracting the top talent in both IT and data security.
The high cost of the Equifax data breach to date, and the ongoing costs, is likely to make this the most expensive data breach of all time.