With companies storing data for longer periods of time to meet compliance regulations and business best practices, the inherent risk of a data breach is growing significantly. Data security breaches are becoming increasingly expensive for organizations, and a variety of industry analysts agree that the costs of such incidents will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. This cost increase is in direct correlation with the ever expanded legislative rulings that require extensive notifications and fines should a data breach occur. In fact over 44 states in the US and many nations currently have adopted strict legislation around notifications involving a data breach. While the legal, administrative and technology expenses resulting from lost data are significant, a new study claims the most significant cost may well be found in customer churn rates. Organizations should develop sound encryption key management processes to minimize administrative overhead and maximize the value of data encryption.