Nothing matches the pain of data leaks especially when it was done through illegal and unethical means. One such phenomenon of data leak is called data breach. More often than not people are peculiarly confidential about their data and want to savor it without the interference of a third party and more often than not we see the failure of those plans flawlessly.
Data leaks are happening every second, every minute of every day. Data leaks can be of various types from the ones that occur on corporate levels to the ones occurring in government organizations to personal ones. And all are more or less equally devastating.
In this article, we will learn the meaning of a data breach, ways to detect and prevent data breaches and methods of data recovery. This article is your one-stop shop solution to all your data breach-related problems.
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What is a data breach?
Data breach is an occurrence where somebody’s personal, professional or confidential data is leaked through illegal means. These are security breaches in which, any data be it sensitive or confidential gets hampered with and reaches the hands of anyone other than that of its original owners.
In simple words, a data breach makes your data vulnerable to everyone by sharing its access and playing with its authorization.
Many organizations and individuals have already become the victims of data breaches and data leaks and the biggest problem with data breaches is most of the time data recovery is not an option. A lot of times, data loses its access to the wrong hands and becomes vulnerable to so many things that data recovery is just not an option. However, there are still ways to get hold of your important or sensitive data but before we get into that, let’s find out ways to avoid data breaches.
Types of data breach
A data breach can affect an individual or an institution in multiple ways from causing financial and practical losses to hampering their dignity and reputation in the market as well.
In terms of frequency, there are 3 types of data breaches:
- Data breaches happen due to sensitive data getting out into the hands of unauthorized persons and thus, forming the chain of data leaks and misuse of data
- Data breaches happen due to hacking into devices carrying them thus, breaching the security of data storage.
- The most common form of data breach found is the occurrence of data loss due to unintentional mishandling of information and data.
Methods used for data breaching
Ransomware:
Using malicious viruses to hack into a system, steal the data and then blackmail the user for money is a method of breaching data and making data recovery hard for the user.
Unethical hacking:
Breaking weak passwords, decoding complex passcodes and getting into people’s or organizations’ systems is unethical hacking that makes data vulnerable to breaches.
Betrayal:
An insider or partner coming out as an imposter is a plot twist nobody wishes for but sometimes becomes succumbed to, leading to data loss.
Physical loss:
falling prey to thieves and losing your storage devices, laptops or even mobile phones to them can lead to a data breach.
No matter the method used, the loss of data can ruin your life in multiple ways. Data recovery is always an option but in case of a data breach, the data recovery is a little tilted. The damage is not only caused by the files stolen or the information leaked but also by the fact that a particular industry couldn’t protect its data securely enough to have it breached through whatever means. There is a loss of reputation, finances, security measures, data and whatnot.
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Ways to prevent and recover data breach
Data breach causes serious materialistic and financial problems and data recovery after that is not at all easy. Preventing data breaches from happening at all should be one’s primary motive and one must know that securing your data against cyber threats and criminalistic activities is no cakewalk. It requires skills precision and presence of mind therefore, one must have a few ideas on how to prevent data breaches and how to execute those ideas.
Taking extra delicate care of the system and your file system should be of utmost importance at any given moment in time.
Cybersecurity Education
Cybersecurity as a concept and practice should be mandatorily explained, taught and revised to all employees by their employers.
Sometimes, employees make gullible passwords to protect really important data making it very susceptible to data loss and hacking and sometimes employees save and accept cookies of unknown sites that may or may not carry harmful malware and could cause serious damage to the organization.
Precaution against these mistakes must be taken along with general information about phishing and ransomware and cyber threats must be provided to employees. And the employees also must swear to protect their company’s data.
Data encryption is a must.
Encryption of data accentuates the security level and protection of the data by one step. Encryption provides an additional layering where certain codes prevent data breaches from happening as they can only be decoded by those who have access.
Limited Access controls
Access controls what marks the final layer of data recovery truffle. Controlling the number of hands that can get to the data or the system that has the data can be a potential method to stop data breaches from happening.
These were some tips to avoid or prevent data breaches from happening but what would you do if a data breach has happened already, what about data recovery, are there methods of data recovery in case of a data breach or not?
All those are subjective questions and depend on the situation but theory must be known. As they say, the first few hours after an accident are the most crucial ones and must be taken extremely seriously. It is the same with data recovery in case of a data breach. Data retrieval is not mostly certain but the possibility depends on the actions taken right after the data breach has happened.
- At first, the in charge of the data that got breached must be informed of the possible risks and threats and then some mentoring must be provided to deal calmly with such a difficult situation.
- Then, the people that form the regulation committee and head of the department committees must be advised to take legal action against the illegal and unethical deed.
- Your backups will prove to be your best friend here and right when you think you have lost everything, is when an external storage device with the backup files of all the data will save you from a lifelong trauma.
Data breach is spreading like wildfire and one must do everything in their command and power to control it, suppress it and cure it.
