Data breaches have become a pervasive concern in today’s corporate digital landscape, and professionals seeking to safeguard sensitive information must understand the potential ramifications.
Convincing business leaders of the significant impact these breaches can have is relatively straightforward because the repercussions involve not only the loss of valuable proprietary knowledge and reputational damage but the staggering expenses incurred for remediation as well. To shield against negative outcomes, prevention emerges as the most effective approach.
Whether you are an established business analytics professional or pursuing education like the online Master of Science in Business Informatics (MBI) – Business Analytics program from Northern Kentucky University (NKU), you must understand data breaches and strategies for prevention to protect your current or future business.
What Are Data Breaches?
A data breach takes place when unauthorized individuals access confidential, private, protected or sensitive information. This breach can result from accidental events or deliberate actions aimed at stealing information from individuals or organizations. An employee may inadvertently disclose sensitive data or intentionally pilfer company information to share or sell it to third parties, or hackers might target databases, extracting data through unauthorized access.
In 2023, 83% of breaches occur due to external actors, and 74% involve a human element, which may be social engineering attacks, misuse or errors. Data breaches occur in various ways, including hacking and malware attacks, insider threats, phishing attacks, third-party breaches, website vulnerabilities and even physical theft of computer hardware.
Regardless of the underlying cause, cybercriminals can use stolen information from a data breach to generate profits through data sales or as part of broader malicious activities, such as extorting organizations into paying a ransom. Compromised data can include bank account details, credit card numbers, personal health records and login credentials for email accounts and social networking sites.
The repercussions of an information breach can be highly detrimental to businesses, leading to financial losses and significant damage to their reputation among customers, clients and employees. Additionally, organizations may face fines and legal consequences due to increasingly stringent data protection and privacy regulations, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Data Breach Statistics and Examples
Consider the following statistics to put the scope of data breach impacts and the need for prevention into perspective:
- In the United States in 2022, the number of data compromises stood at 1,802 cases, with over 422 million individuals affected.
- According to IBM, the average global cost of a data breach was $4.35M in 2022, the highest average on record, and the average cost of a ransomware attack was $4.54M. The average cost of a data breach in the United States is $9.44M.
- In 2022, it took an average of 277 days — about nine months — to identify and contain a breach.
- The share of breaches caused by ransomware grew 41% in the last year and took 49 days longer than average to identify and contain.
What Are the Keys to Developing a Prevention Strategy?
Given the significant costs associated with data breaches, it is vital to allocate resources toward prevention. Here is a brief description of the best practices students in NKU’s online MBI – Business Analytics program learn to prevent and mitigate the risks of data breaches:
- Inventory and identify sensitive data locations: Thoroughly catalog all data sets and pinpoint places where sensitive information resides.
- Establish and enforce policies for elevated access: Implement protocols with regular oversight to prevent unauthorized data exposure.
- Patch infrastructure: Prioritize network and system patching to address vulnerabilities and prevent attackers from exploiting unpatched software.
- Secure the perimeter: Utilize firewalls, intrusion prevention systems and access control tools to defend against external threats and identify potential intrusions to networks.
- Secure the endpoints: Implement network endpoint security controls, such as malware detection software, to protect against internet-based threats.
- Limit the damage: Employ microsegmentation to restrict unauthorized lateral movement within the network, hindering attackers’ progress.
- Encrypt stored and transmitted data: Always apply encryption to sensitive data.
- Enforce strong password policies: Implement modern password requirements, including length, complexity, regular changes and multifactor authentication.
- Work with advanced monitoring tools: Utilize threat detection tools to identify and block intrusions, promptly addressing potential breaches.
- Conduct frequent cybersecurity training: Provide comprehensive security awareness training to employees, contractors and partners, covering data usage guidelines, password policies and common threats like social engineering and phishing scams, and update as necessary.
Learn the Skills to Become a Leader in Data Security
In the online MBI – Business Analytics program offered by NKU’s College of Informatics, you will thoroughly explore the convergence of business and data and learn how to manage and safeguard data systems. The Information Security and Governance course examines the field of information security and assurance in a variety of technical and administrative aspects. Students study a range of security activities, methods, methodologies and procedures.
If you would like to become a leader in business informatics, analytics and data security, this program can help you to secure your future while you help your organization secure its data and its future.
Learn more about NKU’s online MBI – Business Analytics program.
