The 2013 Cost of Data Breach Study, issued today by the Ponemon Institute, shows perhaps most clearly that one way to keep data breach losses low is to tell as few people as possible about your organization's mishaps.

The study, sponsored by Symantec, found that the cost per lost record in an average breach incident increased modestly, from $130 to $136. Germany and U.S. organizations had the highest costs, $199 and $188, respectively. This was the first year when the U.S. per-record cost wasn't the highest.

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