You should prioritise your online safety: these are the most common causes of data breaches

Collaborative Post | One of the worst scenarios you can go through is being the victim of a data breach, which might cause economic, financial, and emotional losses. A data breach occurs when an unauthorised individual gets access to a company's data, and as a result, it manages to steal important information. Data breaches can occur in businesses of all sizes, which is why you have surely heard of plenty of data breaches that have occurred lately. 

This is why, if you don't have enough trust in a company that will manage to keep your data safe, it can be a better idea to refrain from revealing your confidential information, such as personally identifiable information (PII) or personal health information (PHI). Organisations must ensure that they store and handle information and consider the best measures they can take to keep malicious actors away from stealing them. 
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This article will focus on the importance of online safety and data breaches, so keep reading, as being informed is a good way to reduce the chances of experiencing these tragic scenarios. 

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

What can a data breach attract?

A data breach is a negative event that can come with plenty of consequences, both for organisations and individuals worldwide. Nowadays, data breaches have become something common, particularly because of ransomware attacks, and unfortunately, this can lead to technical burdens and business disruption. Enterprises will also need to deal with more costs, as a data breach can attract reputational damage, reduce productivity, and even lead to legal penalties. For example, suppose you have trusted a business that will protect your private information, and they didn't do that. In that case, you can consider the Data Breach Compensation Expert services so that you will discover all the steps involved when you want to file a claim to receive compensation for what you have dealt with. 

Businesses will likely lose their clients after a data breach, as people might not trust that specific company anymore and, because of that, refuse to do business with them in the future as well. Firms from all industries should protect their client's information, but this is even more important in industries like finance and the healthcare sector, where patient confidentiality is imperative and a vital obligation. 

What are the most common causes of a data breach?

Stolen credentials
One of the most common reasons that can lead to a data breach is stolen credentials, as some individuals might use weak passwords or lose access to them, and hackers are always after these happenings. And the truth is that nowadays, people use weak passwords or the same one for all their accounts, which isn't recommended. This happens because this process can offer hackers everything they need to go after accounts and manage to steal them. This is why organisations should highlight the importance of setting strong passwords so the credentials of employees and customers can be kept safe. Companies can also highlight that it is always better to set multi-factor authentication for the data and systems to reduce the chances of hackers managing to cause a data breach. 

Technical vulnerabilities
Another common reason data breaches happen is a technical vulnerability that can increase the chance of a cyber attack. This is why software providers focus on constant upgrades to discover new vulnerabilities and solve them before they become something terrible. In this way, the risk could be solved before hackers manage to exploit it. When software vendors discover vulnerabilities, they create a new version or patch to diminish the chances of data breaches and ensure they protect the data entrusted by clients. 

Malware
Unfortunately, malware is also a very common way hackers manage to steal information. In these attempts, cybercriminals want to exploit the innocence of people who might not know that if they click on a link, they might offer hackers access to company information. Unfortunately, malware can compromise individuals' data and credentials, and in other cases, malware can also lead to encryption or destroy files on a device. 

Malicious insiders
In other cases, malicious actors can be responsible for a data breach, where some employees can reveal the company's sensitive information. Malicious insiders do this because of emotional challenges, financial opportunities or revenge. Unfortunately, this can be more difficult to detect, but it might be a good idea to look for any suspicious behaviour indicating that a threat can pose problems to the company.

Errors
A data breach can also cause an insider error, where an employee might reveal some information by mistake, such as sending an email to the wrong person. This is why it is imperative to make employees understand that they should always pay great attention to details when dealing with sensitive information so that they won't put the company's data at risk. 

The bottom line

Unfortunately, data breaches occur daily as hackers have employed new and improved ways to steal sensitive information. This is why companies should understand that it has become primordial to protect the data of customers and employees so that they won't need to deal with the aftermath of a data breach. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, when a data breach occurs, this can leave a huge impact on the reputation of a company, and because of this, customers might not want to continue doing business with that specific enterprise. This will surely make the organisation deal with numerous losses, which is why it is much better to pay attention from the start and come up with the right solutions to reduce the chances of a data breach.

Above, we have mentioned some reasons why data breaches occur, so it is a very good idea to pay attention to them, and instruct employees on the best practices so that the chances of a data breach can be significantly reduced.​


Disclaimer: this is a collaborative post.