Data privacy is a set of guidelines for how sensitive and important data should be acquired and handled.
Data privacy is a major societal concern in the digital era, in part because data breaches continue to expose millions of people's personal information. Even a single data breach can have major consequences: individuals may be subjected to identity theft or blackmail, while businesses may face financial losses as well as a loss of public, investor, and consumer trust.
Data privacy, also known as information privacy, refers to the treatment of all data relating to a person's identification with secrecy and anonymity in mind.
When data security and information security are violated, sensitive information, personal information, and other sensitive data are exposed, copied, communicated, viewed, stolen, or used by anyone with unauthorised access.
Data loss and breaches can be caused by cyber attacks, social engineering and phishing, ransomware and other types of malware, physical theft of hard drives, slow vulnerability assessment and patching cadence, bad information security policies, poor security awareness training, and a general lack of cyber security measures.
Common targets that cyber criminals look for include:
Financial information such as credit card numbers is a common target for cyber hackers.
Personal information, such as social security numbers, could be exploited to commit identity fraud.
Personal identifiers (PII) such as phone numbers and social media accounts
General information about your company or competitors, such as suppliers and important business ties
Attackers are getting better at coming up with new ways to steal critical information.
In general, there are several common sources for security breaches including:
1. Data leaks
2. Phishing
3. Lost, stolen, and cracked passwords
4. Ransomware
5. Vulnerability exploits
6. Spyware
7. Poor configuration management
8. Third and fourth-party data breaches
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