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Whether you’re a private company that loses customer data or an agency exposed sensitive information about government clients, a Data Breach can damage your reputation and cost your business. Fines, lawsuits, operational problems, and loss of future business can add up fast.

A breach can occur by accident or on purpose, such as when a employee accidentally exposes sensitive information or a hacker steals corporate data and shares it with a third party. The data may be financial, such as credit card or Social Security numbers, medical files, trade secrets, legal documents, or other confidential information. It could also be personal, such as names, email addresses, and other contact details that thieves use to commit identity theft or fraud.

Attackers usually gain access to your systems through phishing, compromised credentials, or software flaws that you’ve failed to patch. They then move around the network, discovering valuable information and escalating privileges without raising alarms. They might even encrypt files and demand money to decrypt them.

If your data breach involves exposing personal information, start by notifying people immediately (see our guide for help). You should also consult with your law enforcement contacts so that your notification doesn’t hamper the investigation. Finally, remove improperly posted information from the Internet. Search engines might keep a cache of old data for a while, so you’ll need to regularly check that the personal information no longer exists online. You can ask other websites to remove the data as well.