What is a Data Breach?
When an organization is hit with a data breach, the consequences can be catastrophic. Aside from the loss of consumer data and reputational damage, businesses often face fines, penalties, lawsuits and disruption to their processes and systems. For example, a government agency may be forced to shut down operations or update its systems after a data breach. In addition, the entity responsible for the breach could be held liable under civil and criminal laws for violating state consumer protection laws.
A data breach is any cyber incident that causes confidential or sensitive information to be exposed, usually resulting in compromised privacy, security or integrity for individuals or systems. It can happen to any type of electronic or paper data and a wide variety of reasons can cause the exposure of that data.
Examples of a data breach include malware, phishing attacks, ransomware, physical theft/loss (like stolen laptops) and social engineering. Malicious insiders, like angry or laid-off employees and greedy contractors who want to do the company harm or profit from its data, are a common cause of breaching data.
Cyber criminals often search for vulnerabilities in organizations’ hardware or software, then exploit those weaknesses. This is called a “zero-day attack” because attackers use the vulnerability before the organization even knows about it. Other common types of data breaches include theft of personal identifying information, which can be sold on the dark web; financial information like credit card numbers and bank accounts; medical records protected under HIPAA; and intellectual property, including trade secrets and patents.