
Personal data breaches can be classified according to what caused them. There are many criteria to divide personal data breaches into types. A data security incident, on the other hand, is when protected data is accessed but does not meet the definition of a breach. A data security breach is when unauthorized access is gained to protected data. In order to prevent future data breaches, it's important to understand the difference between a data security breach and a data security incident. Unfortunately, this is due to data security failures on the part of the organization that was breached. It's no secret that data breaches happen every day. Therefore all data breaches are security breaches. However, all data breaches occur due to some data security failures. Sometimes these breaches do not involve unauthorized access to personal data, therefore they are not personal data breaches. The breach happens at the moment of unauthorized access.Ī data breach as defined in the GDPR is different from a data security breach.Ī security breach means a breach of your information system.

A breach is still a breach.įinally, it doesn’t matter whether the unauthorized person has no effective access to the personal data or if their access poses a threat to the rights and freedoms of your data subjects. It also doesn’t matter whether personal data has been abused or not. It doesn’t matter whether the unauthorized person is an evil hacker who wants to steal and abuse your data or your employee or contractor who should not have access to the data - as long as the access is unauthorized, it is a data breach. When an unauthorized person accesses the data, you have a data breach. Unauthorized access or disclosure of data, or other.ĭata protection laws require businesses to protect personal data from unauthorized access.When a breach occurs, you need to respond to it as required by the law and reduce the damage.Ī data breach means the loss of, unauthorized access to, or unauthorized disclosure of personal information resulting from a security breach. Is a 38% drop too much for your business? If it is, you need to implement breach prevention measures and have a data breach response plan in place. Businesses have been losing 38% of their market share on average due to data breaches.

Not only do these incidents damage your bottom line, they also cause a lot of stress and pain for your employees.Īccording to IBM’s Data Breach Report 2021, the data breach costs for businesses keep increasing steadily, rising 10% annually on average. Fines for data breaches can be huge, while abuse of customer data can lead to a loss of customers, reduced sales, and even loss of business altogether. In fact, data breaches are the only types of security breaches that affect personal data.ĭata breaches and abuse cost businesses a lot of money - both financially and in terms of their reputation. Every time someone tries to break into your building, or your computer systems are compromised by malware or viruses, that's a data breach too. But this isn't the only type of security breach that affects your company. Data breaches have happened to all types of businesses - from small ecommerce stores to large corporations such as Microsoft and it could happen to you as well.Įach time your company suffers a breach, it's like opening your door to someone from the outside - they've gained access to your confidential information and can use it to their advantage. If you think that data breaches only happen to someone else, think again. Read about GDPR Data Breach Responses here.

Data breaches have happened to all types of businesses - from small ecommerce stores to large corporations such as Microsoft and it could happen to you as well.

