Cybercrime such as Web attacks, distributing malicious code via the internet, online intellectual property theft, confiscating online bank accounts, posting confidential business information on the web and disrupting a company’s critical infrastructure can cost as much as $3.8 million per year, on average, and results in about one successful attack each week according to a report sponsored by ArcSight.

The $3.8 million annualized cost represents an average per year per organization with costs ranging from a low of $1 million to a high of $52 million per year, according to the study.

Also, the $3.8 million average cost represents the cost of responding to and coping with the attacks. This is on top of what companies might already be spending each year on antivirus and other security software.

The study included 45 organizations with employee bases ranging from 500 – to over 105,000 from a mix of industries and government agencies.