IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute released a study on Wednesday, June 15, that found the average cost of a data breach has grown to $4 million.

According to Computerworld, last year the cost of data breach has been $3.79 million. This year's figure represents an increase of around 30 percent since 2013.

The two conclusions of the study are that data breaches are becoming more common and the cost they represent for companies is growing. The chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, Lary Ponemaon, explained that data breaches have become now, in the cybercrime era, a consistent cost of doing business. He added that organizations have to incorporate this permanent cost in their data protection strategies.

IBM Security has published the annual Cost of Data Breach study on their website. The research is based on in-depth interviews with nearly 400 companies in the world and examines both direct and indirect costs to enterprises when dealing with a single data breach incident. The study includes costs associated with loss of business, reputational damage and breach response activities.

The study shows that now companies lose around $158 per compromised record. The damage is even worse in some highly regulated industries such as healthcare, where is reaching as much as $355 per record.

Between 2014 and 2015 has been documented a 64 percent increase in reported security incidents. According to ZDNet, at $223 per record on average, data breaches cost the most in the United States.

The study said that the cost of a data breach can be reduced by nearly $400,000 on average, by having an incident response team. The study also found that the reaction speed makes a difference.

Legal expenditures, communications, incident forensics and regulatory mandates account for the most of the data breach cost. In order to deal with the data breach risks, IBM Security recommends access the right resources and skills as well as a coordinated and automated response plan.