What is data security breach?
Data Breach occurs when the personal data of a person gets accessed by some other person also known as a hacker. When the data of a person or an organisation geta accessed by these hackers without their knowledge, then the situation is referred to as data breach. The data which the hacker gets access to, is very sensitive and the personal information gets into the danger zone, when the hacker gets access to it. This threatening situation is possible in two different ways:
- By the hacker personally accessing the computer or network of the user and stealing the sensitive data and files.
- By the hacker, sitting at the comfort of his/her home and getting access to the target person’s computer data, or rather, by bypassing the network remotely and getting access to the desired data.
The second means i.e. by remotely having complete control over the data has become one of the most widely used techniques employed by the cyber hackers. This is one of the reasons for data breach – the data gets breached and the identity of the hackers is not known.
How data breach occur?
Below are some of the ways in which data breach occurs:
BACKGROUND RESEARCH
The cyber hackers always carry out the background research and act accordingly. For any hacking to be a success, background research is mandatory. Importantly, the cyber hackers look for weaknesses or a weak link of the target person or the target company. When they find this weak link, they use it against the person or the company. In other ways, this is the strength that the cyber hackers get and they use this for data breaching.
TAKE ACTION
The cybercriminal slowly comes in contact with the users’ system or network and gains an upper hand on it. First, he/she tries to make a contact in the social media site of the user, then slowly digs into the details and gets full access to the user data. The time of the attack is not sudden, instead, it is very slow and he/she obtains the full data of the target user or the company.
ATTACK ON NETWORK OR SOCIAL
When a hacker gets access to the company’s infrastructure, system, applications and also gets a hang of all the weakness of the company, he/she filtrates them to get access to the company completely. This is a network attack. On the other hand, social attack means tricking the employees of a particular organisation and getting all the data from him/her, like extracting information about- “How to get access to the organisation network?” This can lead to a situation wherein the employee is tricked and his/her user credentials are taken. They may even be asked to provide access to the attachments. This is a strategic malicious move, that can lead to a data breach in an indirect way.
EXFILTRATION
Once the hacker gets complete access to one system in the network of the organisation, he/she can easily attack the whole company’s software system and gather all the essential and confidential data. If the hacker gets all the data successfully without any hurdles, then the mission of the hacker is accomplished. The company’s data is hacked and the data breach is successful.