What is Data Breach?
Data Breach is a cyberattack that exposes sensitive information to hackers, potentially leading to financial loss, business disruption, and long-term damage. It can affect organizations of all sizes and across industries from banks and healthcare to government entities and non-profits.
Data breaches can happen through a number of means including weak passwords, social engineering, unpatched software, insider risks, and malware. Cyber criminals can also search for vulnerabilities in hardware and software, launching attacks like denial-of-service (DoS) and other forms of malicious code that can overload systems, corrupt or damage data, or render it unavailable to users.
Once a breach is identified, it’s important to act fast to limit access, prevent further damage, and mitigate loss. For example, multi-factor authentication can help protect against unauthorized access, even if attackers are able to steal passwords. Additionally, limiting the amount of sensitive data stored in apps, services, and servers is critical to reducing risk.
Breaches can have major impacts on a company’s reputation and bottom line, with customers and clients losing trust in a brand that may never recover from the incident. In addition, legal ramifications, fines, settlements, and other expenses can be costly for businesses.
For governments and other regulated industries, the cost of a data breach can be particularly high. For instance, insurance firm First American Financial saw more than 885 million digitized documents—including mortgage records, bank account statements, photos of drivers licenses, and social security numbers—leaked online in a breach that was caused by a simple web design error.