U.S. companies will spend more than $130 billion dealing with data breaches this year, according to a study by the cybersecurity research firm the Ponemon Institute.

The study says the majority of data breaches are due to company negligence (40 percent) or computer errors (36 percent). Only 24 percent of data breaches were due to malicious attacks on a company.

The average data breach costs a company about $4.5 million when accounting for detection, notification, responsive security enhancements, and lost business. Each breach also results in the loss of about 3.7 percent of a company’s customers, according to the study.

In 2009, the average cost of a stolen document was about $204; of that cost, about $144 was not directly related to the data itself.

Companies are increasingly employing more professionals to help prevent data breaches. Today, there are about 2.25 million cybersecurity professionals working in the U.S., up from about 1.3 million in 2006.

Data breaches have plagued companies like Citigroup, Sony, Sega, and Nintendo in the past six months. The U.S. government, in response, has explored the issue in Senate hearings, and a recent poll by Consumers Union, the not-for-profit publisher of Consumer Reports, found that two-thirds of consumers want the government to protect their privacy.

Make sure to check out Consumer Reports' latest State of the Net report to understand the growing online threats to our online privacy and security and know what to do to protect yourself online.

Sources:
The cost of cybercrime [CNN Money]
Many companies underestimate the cost of security breaches [Tech Journal South]