EVER WONDER HOW DATA LEAKAGE WORKS?
WHAT IS DATA LEAKAGE?
The unlawful communication of data from within an organization to an external destination or recipient is known as data leakage. Data that is moved electronically or physically is referred to as “transferred data.” Data leakage concerns are most common through the internet and email, but they can also happen through mobile data storage devices including optical media, USB keys, and laptops. If a cybercriminal discovers a data leak, the information exposed could be utilised to plan a successful hack. As a result, the risk of data breaches is greatly decreased by identifying and remediating data leaks before they are found.
There isn’t a day that goes by without news of a major data breach. Data leakage, also known as slow and low data theft, is a major concern for data security, and the consequences for any company, regardless of size or industry, can be devastating. This is a threat that any corporation will wish to shield themselves from, from decreased revenue to a tarnished reputation to enormous financial fines to debilitating lawsuits.
Many of these organizations problems with implementing these new tech solutions stemmed from the fact that, from a security standpoint, many of them unknowingly created vulnerabilities in their data and information by failing to set complete standards for their security. This isn’t inherently a problem with the company, but rather a reflection of the difficulties that new working conditions have posed for businesses, particularly those that have created their communications technology stacks on the fly. The worst aspect is that determining if data was accessed after a data breach is incredibly tough. This means that your private information, trade secrets, source code, customer information, personal information, and anything else saved on information systems could be exposed or exploited in corporate surveillance. Simple errors generate data breaches, but people whose data is exposed don’t care how it was disclosed; they only worry that it was revealed. For data leaks, the breach reporting obligations are the same, as is the risk of reputational, financial, legal, and regulatory harm.
Difference between data leakage and data breach:
Data breach:
A data breach occurs when an online service, a company, or an institution is targeted deliberately and violently. The attack is being carried out with the purpose of stealing information. Data breaches are becoming increasingly common, and they are a lucrative industry for cyber thieves. The largest data breaches can result in billions of records of personal information being exposed. Or when an attacker from outside your business gains access to your IT infrastructure and steals private or sensitive information, you have a data breach.
Data leak:
When there is no actual attack, there is a data leak. It’s possible that someone discovers a flaw that was already present. Alternatively, a corporation may have mishandled information and had it compromised as a result of weak security policies. A data leak might also occur as a result of an accident. However, data gets compromised in the end. Data leakage, occurs from the inside out: an employee communicates confidential information with unauthorised receivers or creates a loophole that allows that information to be easily accessed by others who shouldn’t have access to it. Either action could be unintentional or intentional.
A data leak may have a number of negative effects, such as a data violation. It can result in lawsuits from those whose information was leaked, regulatory fines, and damage to your company’s reputation and bottom line. The issue is similar when it comes to data breaches and leaks. Whether it was due to a breach or a leak, your data has been compromised. Account takeover and even identity theft might occur as a result of stolen data. The next step is to make certain that any information that was stolen cannot be utilised against you. For instance, if your credit card information has been compromised, you may wish to put your card on hold.
Types of data leakage:
How does the data leak happen?
- Spearphishing is a term used to describe the most effective social engineering operations. When a cyber criminal sends a targeted phoney email based on known facts in order to better impersonate a high-ranking official or executive, this is known as phishing. Information released in data leaks, particularly psychographic and behavioural data, is exactly the type of information needed to sharpen social engineering assaults and allow cyber criminals to utilise information against a target they wouldn’t normally know.
- Data leaking that is “unauthorised” isn’t always malicious or intentional. The good news is that most data breaches are unintentional. When sending a secret email, for example, an employee may inadvertently select the incorrect recipient. Unfortunately, because they do not lessen legal responsibilities, unintentional data leaking can still result in the same sanctions and reputational harm.
- Data leaks can be used to stifle or halt business operations, and they can also disclose sensitive data to the public. Information disclosed as a result of a data breach can have serious ramifications for the government, corporations, and individuals.
- There are numerous applications for psychographic data. Its sole objective is to foresee and affect public opinion. It is used by both political campaigns and corporations to attract votes and consumers.
- More than just credit card fraud can be committed with personally identifiable information (PII). Doxxing is the activity of illegally obtaining and publishing a person’s personal information. Doxxing is carried out for a number of reasons. Exposed PII can be used in circumstances of political fanaticism, vendettas, harassment, or stalking.
- As part of their job, many companies provide employees with access to the internet, email, and instant messaging. The issue is that all of these devices can transmit files and access external sources via the internet. Malware is frequently used to attack these platforms, and it has a high success rate. A cybercriminal, for example, may easily fake a real company email account and request sensitive data be transmitted to them. The information, which could include financial data or critical pricing information, would be sent unintentionally by the user.
How can we protect our data from the data leakage:
From the user’s perspective, it doesn’t matter how the data is taken. Nothing you could have done could have prevented the data from being stolen in a breach or a leak. You can, however, make it more difficult for crooks to access your information. During a breach or a leak, user credentials are frequently compromised. And it’s not a minor inconvenience, as explained in this article. If your passwords get stolen in a data breach or a leak, you can still act before it’s too late.
- When your password is compromised, using the same or few passwords across all of your accounts puts all of your user accounts at risk. Most individuals reuse their passwords, which makes web crooks quite happy. They’ll try it on as many user accounts as they can once they’ve stolen one. They can’t get into your other accounts if you use unique passwords. This blog post has additional information on the subject. To make passwords easier to remember, keep them in a password manager.
- Determine which data can be freely shared and who should have access to the rest of the information you keep. You can organise all of your data into categories and protect it appropriately by using data discovery and categorisation.
- You can avoid or limit the extent of a data leak by detecting unlawful activity early on. Alerts on changes to critical configuration parameters, for example, can help you address a security hole quickly, and noticing a user copying sensitive data to a local machine can help you intervene before it leaves the premises.
- In addition to your password, 2-factor authentication adds a second layer of security to your user account. It makes it far more difficult for thieves to use stolen user credentials. In this blog post, you can learn more about 2-factor authentication and how to setup it.
- Finally, a procedure must be established to recover any content that has been lost as a result of a data breach. Make sure you test a comprehensive recovery plan for any critical data.
Conclusion:
The cybersecurity issues that plagued 2020 are still present today. Small and midsized enterprises should reject the naive assumption that they will not be attacked (research clearly shows the opposite) and instead examine whether their solutions and policies are adequate to secure their corporate data from harm. SMBs, in particular, are at high risk of becoming victims of cybercrime due to the combination of a remote workforce, insufficient company preparation, and the vulnerabilities that result from these factors.
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