Up to $223bn of top 100 brands' value could be at risk from a data breach, says Infosys study

With recent revelations of how the Solarwinds attacks could have affected thousands of companies, protecting against data breaches is now more important than ever before. It is hard to put an exact figure on a brand’s value, but doing so is necessary if companies want to assess the potential risk posed by data breaches. A new study has now pegged the total risk in brand value of a data breach to the most valuable brands could amount to $223 billion.

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‘Invisible Tech. Real Impact.’, a new study by Infosys and Interbrand, found the brand value at risk from a data breach after a global team of valuation experts estimated the impact of a breach on a brand in a simulation. By estimating these post-breach scores, the companies were able to find the “Value at Risk” due to a breach.

According to the report, the risk level was different for various industries. The highest risk in monetary value was (understandably) to the technology sector with up to $29 billion in brand value risk. That could work out to more than half, or 53 percent of the net income from 2020.

However, the study found that industries related to consumer goods, the automotive sector, financial services and luxury goods and services were also at risk of losing brand value from a data breach. The biggest risk was found for consumer goods, with up to 114 percent of net income from 2020 at risk - or up to $5 billion in brand value risk.

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“There’s a fundamental shift in how brands engage with their customers. As the lines between the physical and virtual worlds increasingly blur, and brands rely more and more on the digital world to create unique experiences for their customers, data breaches have the potential to dent the very core of the brand’s relationship with its customers. These shifts underscore the need to re-evaluate ‘hygiene’ aspects of customer experience, like cybersecurity.” said Interbrand’s CGO Ameya Kapnadak.