The average data breach costs USD 8.00 million in the Middle East, according to IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026. Untrace launches on Product Hunt today, so we start with what breaches and downtime cost, then show how Untrace stores a file.
What does a data breach cost?
Worldwide, the average breach costs USD 4.99 million, a record and up 12% in a year, according to IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026. The Middle East figure covers IBM's Saudi Arabia and UAE sample and is the second highest of any region (IBM, 2026).
The global average rose from USD 3.92 million in IBM's 2019 report to USD 4.99 million in 2026. The Middle East average went from USD 6.93 million in 2021 to a peak of USD 8.75 million in 2024, and is USD 8.00 million in 2026 (IBM, Cost of a Data Breach Reports 2019 to 2026, by report year).
What does downtime cost?
A breach is not the only bill. For over 90% of mid-size and large firms, one hour of downtime costs more than USD 300,000, according to ITIC's 2024 Hourly Cost of Downtime Survey. 41% of enterprises put that hour at USD 1 million to over USD 5 million, before litigation or penalties (ITIC, 2024).
Why is one place the problem?
Most files still sit whole in one store. Firewalls, identity and monitoring guard the door, but the files behind it are complete. One compromised account can reach every file. One outage can stop every file.
How does Untrace store a file?
The answer is not another lock on the same door. It is changing what exists behind it.
In the current Untrace architecture, each file is encrypted in the browser, then divided into six encrypted shards stored in six different locations. Any three shards can reconstruct the file. Fewer than three cannot.
A breached location holds fragments, not files. No single location holds enough shards to reconstruct a file.
One location going down does not take the files with it. With six shards in six locations and any three needed to rebuild a file, files stay available when one location is offline.
Sign-in is a passkey. Rebuilding a file takes the owner's passkey, confirmed by fingerprint, face or PIN, so there is no password to phish. Files are encrypted in the browser, so the locations storing the shards only see encrypted pieces.
Breaches and outages hit one place at a time. Untrace changes what one place holds.
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