Saudi Arabia Data Breach Costs Soar to SAR 27 Million in 2026

The average cost of a data breach for organizations in Saudi Arabia reached SAR 27 million in 2026, according to IBM's annual report. This figure is based on an analysis of 602 real-world breaches experienced by organizations globally between March 2025 and February 2026.

Financial services, industrial, and technology organizations recorded the highest average breach costs, with SAR 38 million, SAR 35.4 million, and SAR 33 million respectively. Organizations that struggled to prioritize threats, mismanaged secrets and keys, or lacked cybersecurity skills experienced higher breach costs.

A DevSecOps approach, endpoint detection and response tools, and encryption were identified as key factors in reducing breach costs. However, among malicious breaches, 25% were AI-enabled, with organizations using AI and security automation recording average breach costs of SAR 23.15 million compared to SAR 32.08 million for those without these capabilities.

After experiencing a data breach, 62% of Saudi organizations plan to increase investment in security tools and governance. Data loss prevention was the top priority among those planning additional investment, followed by incident response planning and testing, hiring skilled cybersecurity specialists, and quantum security and cryptography management tools.