Before you take any measures to ensure cybersecurity, you need to find out how data breaches occur and what kind of risk each of these breaches poses. Here are a few main causes of data breaches for you to consider:
#1. Criminal Hacking
Criminal hacking is among the top causes of data breaches since they are the toughest to identify and combat. About five and a half million cyber-attacks occur every year and they are the reason behind almost half of the data breaches and crimes of the country. Unfortunately, 80 percent of these fraud offenses are not even reported. Stealing credentials is the objective of most such attacks.
#2. Malware
Malware is another cause of data breaches. There are RAM scrapers that collect sensitive information by scanning the memory of digital devices. And then there are also keyloggers that capture the keys that the users strike on the keyboard. These are used to steal passwords and credentials. There are also various other types of malware including spyware, adware, ransomware, worms, Trojans, and computer viruses that can usually be identified and quarantined by professional anti-virus software systems.
#3. Human Errors
It is not necessarily malicious attacks that cause data breaches. Human errors can cause breaches too. In fact, one of every five incidents of data breaches that occur as a result of an employee’s mistake. Whether you send an email to the wrong person, attach a wrong document, or even hand over a physical file to an unauthorized person, you are compromising sensitive information, leading to a data breach.
#4. Social Engineering
You must have come across many emails that appear legitimate but are actually malicious. This is called phishing. And then there is also financial pretexting were in a certain crook might contact you under false pretense to gain access to your financial information. Such information is usually sold to a third party for money. Such actions are called social engineering and account for quite a few data breaches.
#5. Privilege misuse
There are many cases where employees happen to misuse the information that they are allowed to access. Although not done for malicious purposes, they do cause data breaches that can lead to losses for organizations. These can be stopped by administering proper access controls and making it mandatory for employees to follow the right policies and procedures.
#6. Physical actions
While there are many cyber-attacks and malicious attacks that cause data breaches, there are also those that involve no technological exploits. These include theft of files and devices that contain sensitive information. Any opportunist crook can easily steal these things by distracting the employee’s attention.
As explained by Siteimprove Data Privacy, it is important for every organization to take proper measures to implement cybersecurity. If you haven’t done this already it is time you take some action. Find out which of these causes your organization is susceptible to. Implement proper practices to safeguard your data and win the trust of your customers and employees.
