Data breach trends and advice, from IBM Security’s Chris Hockings. The Cost of a Data Breach report for 2021 was recently released by IBM and The Ponemon Institute. Yes, the costs went up again, with the average total cost of a data breach increasing by nearly 10 percent year over year, the largest single year cost increase in the last seven years. Data breach costs rose from US$3.86 million to US$4.24 million, the highest average total cost in the history of this report.