Cyberattacks cost U.S. businesses an average $8.9 million annually, study says

According to a survey of 56 corporate and governmental organizations conducted by the Ponemon Institute, the average amount they paid for all the costs associated with cyber attacks was $8.9 million during the past year. That's up 6 percent from the previous year's study.

And for the first time, Ponemon expanded the survey to other countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Japan. Costs ascribed to cyber attacks in those locales was significantly lower: $5.9 million in Germany and $5.1 million in Japan, for example. The study, sponsored by HP Enterprise Security, offers some explanation for why the U.S. cyber crime figure is far higher. "We found that U.S. companies were much more likely to experience the most expensive types of cyber attacks, which are malicious insiders, malicious code, and Web-based incidents," the report says.