Security breaches are costing more to deal with, suggests security software provider Symantec.

The report found that on average, data breaches cost UK firms around £1.9m annually.

These expenses are the result of clearing up after breaches, loss of clients and rebuilding trust with the customers.

The costs have risen for a third consecutive year as the number of attacks has gone the same way and regulators push firms to keep their defences up to date.

The biggest incident logged in the report cost a firm around £6.2m, an increase of £2.3m compared to the biggest incident reported in 2009.

System failures, of both technologies and polices, accounts for 37% of all cases sampled for the report.

Negligence, in which employees lose vital data on laptops, phones and/or USB sticks accounted for 31% of cases. Encryption systems are becoming an increasingly popular method of limiting this type of less, according to the report.