Last year, Verizon’s data breaches report showed that “human error” was the only factor with year-over-year increases in reported incidents. The average cost of data breaches from human error stands at $3.33 million, according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2020. Even big companies and government entities have fallen victim to data breaches caused by human error.
Conducting a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) or privacy impact assessment (PIA) is a complex and challenging task. Nevertheless, it’s critical to do. Data privacy concerns have become a significant focus across all industries, and for good reason: data is at higher risk than ever before. In its 2020 Q3 Data Breach QuickView Report, Risk Based Security revealed that 36 billion records were exposed during the first three quarters of 2020.
Data leaks don’t get as much press as data breaches — but they can be just as devastating to your business. In this article, you’ll learn how data leaks happen and the key steps to take to defend your organization.
The Data Protection Act was brought in in 2018, and it controls and monitors the way that UK businesses and organizations use your personal data and information, such as credit, payment card, financial information, social security numbers, and any sensitive data. Under the act, it is up to everyone to ensure that they use data wisely and adhere to the data protection principles that are laid down in the act, which are.
Historically, one difference between a company victimized by ransomware and those hit with a hacking intrusion that resulted in stolen data was that in a ransomware attack, the data wasn’t actually stolen, but was encrypted so that the victim would have to pay a ransom to regain access. Unlike traditional data thefts, ransomware—the theory went—didn’t really steal data. It encrypted it so that the authorized users couldn’t get to it unless a ransom was paid.
Avon and Family Tree aren’t companies you would normally associate with cybersecurity, but this year, all three were on the wrong side of it when they suffered massive data breaches. At Avon 19 million records were leaked, and Family Tree had 25GB of data compromised. What do they have in common? All of them were using Elasticsearch databases. These are just the latest in a string of high profile breaches that have made Elasticsearch notorious in cybersecurity.
The most dependable cybersecurity strategies involve assiduously monitoring for external attack vectors. But if this is the only dimension you are monitoring, your internal networks could be compromised while your back is turned. The threat of a cyberattack is not only on the external front, many data breaches occur through compromised vendors, even highly reputable ones. To prevent cyber criminals from accessing your sensitive data through breached vendors, read on.
