Cost of a data breach: $4 million. Benefits of responding quickly: Priceless.

CIO: The bad news is that data breaches are becoming ever more common. The worse news is that the cost they represent for companies is going through the roof.

Those are two conclusions from a study released Wednesday by IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute, which found that the average cost of a data breach has grown to US $4 million. That's a hefty jump compared with last year's $3.79 million, and it represents an increase of almost 30 percent since 2013.

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