What is a Data Breach?

A data breach refers to the unauthorized release of sensitive or protected personal or financial/business information from a computer system. Other names for this event include unauthorized data disclosure, unintentional data exposure, data leakage, data theft and data dump. A major benefit of managing and securing your data are that it can prevent many types of disaster from occurring. Data loss and data intrusion may be used interchangeably, but they are very different concepts. Data loss is a situation in which data is no longer accessible by the user because of some kind of physical or logical cause.

A data breach occurs when someone intentionally or accidentally releases private or sensitive data into an unsecured environment. Other common terms for the event include accidental data exposure, unauthorized data exposure, unintentional data disclosure and data leakage. Inaccidental data exposure refers to an exposure of confidential or protected information because of either human or mechanical error. On the other hand, human error is defined as the act of performing an action that results in an unintended result.

Unauthorized data release or data leakage refers to an intentional breach of security in order to gain access to personal or financial information. There are many different ways that people go about gaining access to this type of information, but the main purpose is usually the retrieval of the stolen or unguarded information.

Business organizations should take steps to prevent and manage data breaches. They must implement policies and procedures for maintaining a secure data environment. The first step is to establish clear guidelines that govern how information is stored. This includes rules that establish how information is protected and safeguarded in a physical or virtual environment. Next, a company must implement adequate technical safeguards that protect computer systems from any possibility of being compromised.

All company’s information is vulnerable to compromise. Most often, a company’s information is exposed in various ways such as through the internet, mobile phone, email, employee computer systems and even hardware. When a company maintains and implements an effective data breach program, the company will be able to monitor their systems. If the company determines that there is a chance that their data has been compromised, they will initiate the process of notifying all employees and informing them about the risk.

Companies can stop data breaches by using a data breach detection and response system that detect a potential risk. and stops the breach before it takes place.