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Interpreting “how many audits happen yearly?”

• ISO 27001 is a clean proxy: with ~48.7k (under-counted) certificates and annual surveillance, there are tens of thousands of ISO 27001 external audits each year—plus new Stage 1/2 certifications and recerts. 

• Add SOC 2, PCI DSS, HIPAA/SOX, etc., and the true annual audit volume across frameworks is significantly higher—but not centrally reported by any one body (varies by industry and region). (This is why many SMB audits need MSP evidence.)

Cost signals

• “The average global data breach now costs $4.88M, up from $4.45M the prior year.” Axios

• “HIPAA collected >$9M in 2024 alone; cumulative fines $144.9M to date.” legalhie.com+1

• “GDPR fines total roughly €5.9B to date.” dataprivacymanager.net

• “PCI DSS v4.0 (2024) tightened requirements; historic reports show low full-compliance in the field.” Dark Reading+1

• “76% of SMEs use an MSP, meaning most SMB audits will involve MSP-managed systems and evidence.” JumpCloud

If you want a single “cost of compliance vs non-compliance” stat, the Ponemon/Fortra work is still widely cited (program-level, not per-audit): organizations spend $7.7M–$30.9M on compliance vs ~$9M–$15M average for non-compliance incidents. Use with context. Fortra+2globalscape.com+2

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