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What Is a Data Breach?

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Data breach is a security incident that exposes confidential, sensitive, and personal protected data to an unauthorized person.

Who Causes Data Breaches

It is said that hackers cause data breaches but that is not true. There are various other factors which lead to data breaches and are as follow.

  • An Accidental Insider: A data breaches can be caused by a co-worker who uses files or computers of their colleague without permission. The person may not share any information and the access is unintentional but as it is viewed by an unauthorized person, it is considered as data breaches.
  • A Malicious Insider: A malicious insider is a person who gets access to personal computers and shares confidential and sensitive data with the intent of causing harm to the owner or authorized person.
  • Lost or Stolen Devices. When an unlocked laptop, external hard drive, mobile or other devices that contain sensitive information goes missing it is also considered as data breaches.
  • Malicious outside Actors: when an outsider actor also knows as hacker uses different methods to gather sensitive information from a network is also a data breach.

Methods Used to Breach Data

The hackers use different tricks and methods for breach planning of an organization. They identify the weak points and vulnerabilities like missing or failed updates and employee’s weakness. After knowing the target weakness they plan a campaign where the insiders mistakenly download malware. The hackers search for data they want as they have more time to do it.

  • Stolen Credentials: Stolen and weak credentials are the reasons for various cyber attacks. The hackers use the user’s name and passwords to get access to a network. As many people use the same password for every kind of accounts, the hackers use the password to get access to email, websites, bank accounts, and financial information.
  • Payment Card Fraud: The hacker attaches different card skimmers to gas pumps and ATMs through which they can steal the user data whenever the card is swiped.
  • Third-party access. When the entire network is secured, the malicious actor can use third-party vendors to enter the secured network.
  • Mobile Devices: In most workplaces, the employees are allowed to bring their own devices like personal laptop, and it becomes easier for hackers to unsecured devices to download malware apps through which they can store data on their device.