A data breach occurs when sensitive, confidential or otherwise protected data has been accessed or disclosed in an unauthorized fashion. This can happen through access to or disclosure of physical or digital data.
HOW DOES A DATA BREACH HAPPEN
A data breach can happen at the hands of hackers, can be unintentionally distributed or released by employees of a company, can happen though the result of unprotected databases displaying information to anyone who finds it or the result of physical/digital records that were lost or stolen.
The scary thing about a data breach is that any entity, no matter how secure, can be a victim. A business may not even be the target for a hacker, but a third party the business shares data with can be. Consumers often have to supply personally identifiable information (PII) to companies in order to receive a good or service and their information is at risk as soon as it is shared.
WHAT TYPES OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION ARE INVOLVED IN A DATA BREACH
Data breaches involve both sensitive (social security number, date of birth, medical/health records, etc.) and nonsensitive (name, email, credit card number, etc.) personally identifiable information.
RESOLVING A DATA BREACH
Remediation of a data breach depends on the type of PII that was compromised. The more sensitive the data that was stolen (e.g. social security number), the more important it is to act quickly.
If you are unsure how concerned you should be about the information leaked in a data breach, Breach Clarity is a tool developed by Futurion in partnership with ITRC. It allows consumers to receive a risk score based on a proprietary algorithm; the higher the score the greater the risk of identity theft.
If you have questions or are a victim of a data breach you can receive no-cost assistance from ITRC. LiveChat with one of our expert advisors or call us toll-free at 888.400.5530.
