Current edition summary
The 2026 breach average hit a record $4.99M.
The IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026, released 29 July 2026, put the global average breach at a record $4.99M, up 12% year over year and the first increase after the 2025 edition's fall. Two shifts define this edition: the mean time to identify and contain a breach rose to 247 days, reversing five straight years of decline, and for the first time IBM broke out AI-enabled breaches, which reached one in four of all malicious breaches. The figures below are the report's headline numbers, each traced to the primary source.
Global average
$4.99M
+12% YoY, a record high
US average
$11.5M
Highest of any country, over 2x global
Mean time to contain
247 days
Up from 241, reversing a 5-year decline
Costliest sector
$6.64M
Healthcare, #1 for 13 straight years
AI-enabled breach
$6M
1 in 4 malicious breaches, up 56%
Ransomware share
39%
Of reported incidents, up from 34%
Direct answer / What the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 found
The IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 puts the global average breach at a record $4.99M, up 12% from the prior year. The United States remained the most expensive country at $11.5M, more than twice the global figure. The mean time to identify and contain a breach rose to 247 days, reversing five consecutive years of improvement. Healthcare stayed the costliest sector for the 13th consecutive year at $6.64M, followed by financial services at $6.29M. For the first time, IBM broke out AI-enabled breaches: one in four malicious breaches involved AI, and they averaged about $6M, roughly $1M above the global average. The study covers 602 organisations breached between March 2025 and February 2026.
Source: IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 (released 29 July 2026) and IBM newsroom. Last verified August 2026.
Section 2026.1 / Year over year
What changed from the 2025 report
The 2026 edition reverses two of the 2025 report's headline stories. Cost stopped falling and the containment clock, which had improved for five straight years, turned back up.
Cost direction
$4.99M
Global average, up 12% from $4.44M in 2025
The 2025 report had recorded a fall to $4.44M. The 2026 figure is a record and the first year-over-year rise since, driven by longer containment times and the added cost of AI-enabled attacks.
Containment clock
247 days
Mean time to identify and contain, up from 241 in 2025
The all-breach lifecycle had fallen for five consecutive years, reaching a nine-year low of 241 days in 2025. In 2026 it turned back up to 247 days, and the longer a breach runs, the more it costs.
Section 2026.2 / By industry
Average breach cost by industry, IBM 2026
Healthcare stayed at the top for the 13th year running, though it was the only sector to fall in 2026. Every other tracked industry rose, and financial services closed most of the gap.
Primary source:IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 (Figure 3, all 17 sectors). Each bar shows the 2026 average with its year-over-year change vs 2025.
Section 2026.3 / What drove the cost
AI, phishing, and the two categories that carry most of the bill
AI-enabled attacks
1 in 4
For the first time, IBM broke out AI-enabled breaches: one in four malicious breaches involved AI, a 56% jump year over year, averaging about $6M, roughly $1M above the global figure.
Cost concentration
63%
Detection and escalation plus lost business together accounted for 63% of the total cost, nearly two-thirds, the same two categories that have led every recent edition.
Defence that paid off
-$1.93M
Organisations using security AI and automation extensively cut breach costs by about $1.93M and shortened breach lifecycles by 65 days versus those using none. Phishing remained the most common initial attack vector.
Primary source:IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 and IBM newsroom (29 July 2026). Mean-time and cost-concentration figures corroborated via Help Net Security's report summary (30 July 2026). Last verified August 2026.
Methodology
The IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report is produced with the Ponemon Institute. The 2026 edition is based on 602 organisations that experienced a breach between March 2025 and February 2026, across 16 countries and 17 industries. Costs are total organisational cost per breach, covering detection and escalation, notification, post-breach response, and lost business. This site's exposure calculator is deliberately calibrated on IBM's fully verified 2025 per-industry and per-country tables and is labelled 2025; this page reports the current 2026 edition.
Index / Companion schedules
01 Calculator
→Estimate a specific industry and size combination.
03 By industry
→All 17 sectors on the 2026 figures, with regulations and notable breaches.
08 By country
→16 IBM regions ranked, US highest at over 2x the global average.
02 2025 statistics
→The fully verified 2025 snapshot the calculator is calibrated on.
10 Cost breakdown
→The four IBM cost categories and the multi-year cost tail.
06 Ransomware costs
→Extortion-incident economics behind the 39% ransomware share.
Schedule F / Reference Q&A