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Imagine entering a plaza and filling up a coupon or installing a brand-new app on your device. The first information that you’re asked is your name, email address and birthday. And, without blinking twice, we give this tangible information away. Perhaps by now, many of us must have lost the count of the number of apps which have the access to our above information. But the particular issue to examine here is the aftermath of this information landing in malicious hands.
The lost story of stolen data:
“Any theft or loss of personal information is termed as Breach of Data” the number of lawsuits seeking legal redress for damage caused by data breach have risen over the recent years. This highlights the fact that our precious data can be accessible to others if not well secured. Let us also not neglect how the corporation also comes at risk when such a violation takes place.
Let’s assume a company A has failed to secure its client’s personal information adequately. It leaves the hackers an easier access for them to grab their hands on this data. At a click of a mouse, the access is granted to numerous individual’s sensitive personal data: Social Security Number, Bank Details, Financial Data, Company Secrets, etc. Such an action can bring the reputation of the company to rumbles. With tarnished fame and lawsuits flying in, this can only be an ideal nightmare for both the company and its clients.
The business stakes after a Data Breach:
When the secured data of a company is at stake, it takes a lot to recover it back. The most fated consequence of a data breach is the financial loss that is incurred. The cost of coping with the losses comes with compensating the affected customers, heightened security costs and a decrease in share value. Significantly, studies show that 29% of businesses that face a data breach end up losing revenue. Of those businesses, 38% experience a loss of 20% of more.
With the entire world being connected through internet, a good reputation spreads fast. The news of damage may travel at light speed and put the entire business at risk. This puts the company in a very thin situation. Negative press and potential customer’s review may lead to the company taking a big hit. According to recent surveys in the event of a breach, the consumers are quick to turn their backs, with 65% of data breach victims reporting lost trust in an organization because of breach. Besides that, 85% of the customers are likely to comment negatively about the company in the future.
Legal Ramification is yet another chapter to be unfold. With cases mostly including the breach of victim’s individual personal information, the situation often ends with class-action lawsuits. An estimated 10s of millions can be paid out via lawsuits and settlements. In some extreme cases the authorities may even restrict companies from performing certain operations until legal investigation is completed, these can lead to additional long-term issues.
The e-commerce platforms are more prone face security risk. The Cloud-based customer data (CDM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) may offer an easy point for hackers if these platforms lack in robust securities. The E-commerce companies are also vulnerable to a host of other cyber security attacks, including denial-of-service (DoS) attacks that can shut down your website, automated bots that attempt to use stolen credit cards numbers to complete the transaction, and e-skimming attacks in which malware is installed on checkout pages to steal customer’s personal information.
The data breach prevention potion:
Prevention is always better than cure, especially, if the cure is highly expensive.
To lower the risk of breaches the companies are advised to follow some essential security practices:
Save only the utmost needed information: collecting more data from the clients equals to providing more security to it. It requires necessary space, effort and action. Therefore, it is advised to limit the data to only necessary requirements. It is also advised to delete to any temporarily required information after it has been properly used.
Keep a good check on your cybersecurity: companies are encouraged to look for paid security programs to keep hackers at bay. They are more efficient in securing the company network and every device linked to it. A regular update of the programs is a must for more efficiency. Having a robust cyber security strategy and incident response plan in place is a must have for e-commerce platforms, especially.
Payment through business credit card: business credit card come with zero-liability fraud protection. A sending limit on employee cards and notification alerts via text can be set up as well. This limits the suspicious activities and keeps a fair check on it. Another big pro of using it is the fact that one can easily procure a detailed expense report to see the statistics.
Setting internal controls against the employee fraud: it is deemed wise to use internal controls to limit the risk of employee fraud. The employee’s access should be limited strictly to the information needed for their job.
Well trained staff: phishing attempt can be the easiest form of breach. A simple email or SMS when clicked can swipe the entire data away. To prevent such a situation staff must be trained to carefully examine any emails containing links or attachments.
Is cybersecurity potentially growing as well?
In May 2019, Canva, an Australia-based graphic design platform, detected a data breach in its server. The suspect exposed confidential information such as username, passwords, email address and residence address of around 130 million users.
With the risk of information being stolen at the doorsteps, knights in shining armour have arrived to rescue. Based on an analysis by Fortune Business Insight’s detailed report, the global market for cybersecurity exhibited a significant growth of 7.6% in 2020 as compared to year-on-year growth during 2017-2019. The market is also positively projected to grow from USD 165.78 billion in 2021 to USD 366.10 billion in 2028 at a CGAR of 12.0% during the 2021-2028 period.
A last note:
The hackers may be well qualified and well-trained individuals. But it is us individuals, who grant them access to our privacy.
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