What is a Data Breach?
A Data Breach is a security incident that exposes private or confidential information to someone who should not have access. It can include unauthorized modification, disclosure, deletion or exfiltration of PII (personally identifiable information).
Hackers may use stolen login credentials from one site to gain access to another in a technique called credential stuffing. Criminals may also sell PII like your email address, passwords and credit card details on the Dark Web or use it to steal money from bank accounts via a technique called cryptojacking.
Employees may accidentally expose information to hackers by storing it in unsecured locations, misplacing devices with sensitive data saved on them, or giving network users excessive data access privileges. A misconfigured cloud service or a temporary IT failure can also leave data exposed to anyone with an Internet connection.
Malicious insiders commit data breaches with malicious intent, which could be to profit from the information or for espionage purposes. They might exploit their or others’ privileged access to your company’s system by hacking the password management system, purchasing stolen credentials on the Dark Web or coercing employees into revealing authorization credentials through social engineering attacks. For example, the Colonial Pipeline was forced to pay $5 million in 2021 to unlock its IT systems after a ransomware attack. The attackers then used a tool known as Exfiltration to remove files from the pipeline. These tools make it easy for hackers to monetize data breaches by publicly posting the stale information online.