The damaging after-effects of a data breach

Oct 18, 2019 08:00 am Cyber Security 537

Think your organisation is unlikely to be affected by a data breach? Think again.

A Carbon Black study has found that 88% of UK businesses were breached last year, demonstrating just how widespread the threat is. If your organisation hasn’t yet suffered a data breach, it’s probably only a matter of time.

Indeed, you may already have fallen victim and simply not know it yet. The average time to detect a security incident is 206 days. That’s almost seven months.

Consider how much damage is being done in that time. The criminal hackers are probing your systems looking for more and more useful information, thousands, if not millions, of records are being compromised and the people whose information has been stolen are being subjected to all sorts of malicious acts without their knowledge.

How are breached businesses affected?

Organisations suffer in many ways when they fall victim to a data breach, but the most immediately worrying are the financial repercussions.

There are several costs associated with a data breach, such as:

Compensating affected customers;

Setting up breach response efforts, like helpdesks for affected customers and complementary credit checks;

Investigating the incident, which might include hiring a third party or paying your own security staff in overtime; and

Falling share prices.

There’s also the threat of regulatory penalties following a data breach. The disciplinary powers introduced in the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) has made this potentia ..

Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.