Data Breach
| 1. A data breach is a form of cyber security incident that comprises the organisation's data or information.
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2. A data breach is an incident during which an encrypted database is broken or hacked, and the valuable information stored within is compromised. The term “data” in this case most often describes sensitive, protected or confidential data such as customer records that are protected by law or required by Federal regulation to be protected. Data breaches may involve personal health information, personally identifiable information, trade secrets or intellectual property. Most often the term data breach is applied to describe the theft of data – a malevolent action by unauthorized parties such as hackers, fraudsters or spies. The data need only be viewed for a breach to have occurred, but if it is copied and transmitted the potential consequences are ominous. The loss of information by data breach is the nefarious first step in online crimes such as identity theft, credit card fraud, and banking fraud. In these cases crooks target data such as credit card numbers, PINs, bank account numbers, and social security numbers. However the term can also describe the release of sensitive data to an “untrusted environment” by accident, through the fault of an authorized party.
Source: (Michael Teeling, 2012)
3. Data breaches are a serious type of security incident that involves the release of personally sensitive, protected and/or confidential data, such as social security numbers and personal health records.
Source: (Brew, 2014)