Yahoo accepted in September 2016 that it happened to be the victim of the biggest data breach in 2014. According to Yahoo, the cyber attackers are believed to have stolen the real names, telephone numbers, email addresses, DOBs, and birthplaces of almost 500 million users. It was claimed by Yahoo that the majority of compromised passwords are hashed. The timing of disclosure by Yahoo was bad and was about to be acquired by Verizon which had already paid Yahoo nearly $4.5 billion for Yahoo’s main internet business. This data breach had cost the company an estimated $350 million.
As the companies invest more heavily in the digital infrastructure, the extent of data breaches and cyber attacks have also increased. The survey indicates that the average cost of a data breach rose to $3.92 million. This amount is an increase of 12% in the last five years. In this period, the average cost of every stolen file is found to be $148.
Data Breach
With the rising cost of data breaches and the extent of damage it can make to an organization, people across a range of industries should understand what they have to encounter. It is important that the cyber criminals whether they exist outside the organization or within the organization are said to be exploiting the same loopholes or mistakes that are carried from one industry to another. The Yahoo data breach investigation revealed that 95% of security-related incidents and 90% of data breaches do come under the same 9 categories from 2014.
A data breach is a security failure in which sensitive and valuable information is accessed an unlawful or unauthorized way. It can hurt businesses and customers in varied ways. An easy way to add to your security measures is to install the best vpn extension for chrome or similar. This can mask your IP address and keep data safe from online snoopers. Data breaches generally involve Personal Health Info (PHI), Personally Identifiable Info (PII), trade confidentialities, and Intellectual property.
The lesson for IT Security Teams
It is the time IT security team of an organization or CISOs should know how they can prevent the data breach and should have to invest in tools to minimize the cyber security gaps. Of course, this theory means differently to different organizations and enterprises. But the importance lies in identifying the risks that the organization currently faces, anticipating those risks in the context of cyber security breaches across the industry and others, and then implementing appropriate solutions that would protect the sensitive business data and IT infrastructure.
How Does Data Security Breach Occur?
- Human Error: The data security breaches are also caused by human error or fault. Sometimes, the IT teams accidentally or unintentionally exposes customer personal data such as personal data like credit card details, log in and password details, or email IDs by wrong configured servers or falling prey to the social engineering strategies. More than half of the data breaches occur because of human error.
- Device Loss: There are occasions where we lose our devices due to various reasons like personal negligence or forgetfulness which pose a huge security risk. Some people are careless about leaving their mobile phones, laptops, tablets o thumb drives carrying proprietary data or unfettered access to the network. It gives bad actors the chance to steal sensitive and valuable info from the lost devices.
- Cyber attack: Of course, cyber attacks are known to be at the forefront of all data breaches. As the cyber crime industry has already surpassed $600 billion around the world, increasingly organizations and corporations are concerned about the threats from bad actors that are always on the run for bypassing the IT defenses. Cyber criminals deploy malware, phishing, or ransom ware to gain access to your network.
- Internal Breaches: Lastly, all internal data breaches may not be accidental or unintentional and should be considered as a real threat. The disgruntled employees who suspect to be dumped by the organization or dissatisfied employees who might not be satisfied with the organization for some reasons can exfiltration information they have access unlawful way.
