Protecting customer records is a magnitude less expensive than paying for cleanup after a data breach or massive records loss, a research company said Tuesday. Gartner analyst Avivah Litan said in a research note that data protection is cheaper than a data breach. She recently testified on identity theft at a Senate hearing held after the Department of Veterans Affairs lost 26.5 million vet identities.

"A company with at least 10,000 accounts to protect can spend, in the first year, as little as $US6 per customer account for just data encryption, or as much as $US16 per customer account for data encryption, host-based intrusion prevention, and strong security audits combined," Litan said in an accompanying statement.

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