The study, which involved interviewing senior level personnel from 33 organisations in various industry sectors in Australia, found that the average annualised cost of cybercrime incurred by these organisations amounted to $3.2 million, with a range of $350,000 to $10.9 million.

The most costly cybercrimes continue to be those caused by denial of services, malicious insiders and web-based attacks. According to the study, these account for more than 60 per cent of annual cybercrime costs per organisation.

The study also found that disruption to business processes and revenue losses represent the highest external cost, accounting for 41 and 54 per cent, respectively.

Additionally, although the average time to resolve a cyberattack is 21 days, this year's study reveals that it can take over 40 days. The average cost during the 21-day period is $183,479, and of course increases depending on the duration.

"Organisations are spending increasing amounts of time, money and energy responding to cyberattacks at levels that will soon become unsustainable," HP Asia-Pacific and Japan enterprise security products vice-president, Chris Poulos, said. "There is clear evidence to show that the deployment of advanced security intelligence solutions helps to substantially reduce the cost, frequency and impact of these attacks."