One cannot deny that the customer’s trust is crucial for the success of an organization and maintaining data privacy is one of the most important factors to gain it. They need to trust that the organizations and their privacy are protected. If an organization is not able to accomplish its commitment to privacy, then customers will look for other substitutes. 

The biggest problem that many organizations face in the privacy context is a data breach. The data breach consists of the personal information of the people that can damage the organization’s position in the market. According to the FireEye report of 2016, companies in the world took around 146 days to detect a data breach.  

Facts about the impact of Data Privacy Breach

• IT governance discovered 1,243 security incidents that accounted for 5,126,930,507 breached records in 2021. That means, there was an 11% increase in the security scenarios as compared to 2020 which was 1,120.
• According to an IBM report, data breach average costs have peaked from USD 4.24 million to 2.6% in 2021.
• Around Rs 17.6 crore in 2022 costs Indian businesses in data breaches – the highest amount ever called the “Biggest challenge” for the industries, according to an IBM report.

What is a Data Breach?

Any illegitimate access to data that is damaged or copied from any source is known as a data breach. Stolen data may include any information like customer data and details that may be confidential for business. Any organization can suffer a data breach whether it is small or big. The effect of a data breach targets the company’s reputation due to which they can lose the customer’s trust in securing the data. 

A data breach is a cyberattack that allows cybercriminals to get unauthorized access to a system and steal private information related to the data of an organization or customers. This signifies the security weakness and the effects can be devastating for any organization and its customers. 

Keep reading the blog to know about the effects of a data privacy breach. 

Effects of Data Breach

There can be countless consequences of a data breach. That is why 86% of business executives accept cyber security threats, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey. 

Some of the effects of data privacy breaches in an organization are as follows: – 

• Reputational Loss – If an organization faces a data breach, then it affects the loss of customers’ trust. As a result, the brand’s reputation takes a huge turn. Studies show that due to data breaches around 65% of consumers lose trust and 85% of them stop engaging with their organization.
• Financial impact – The impact of a data privacy breach can lead an organization to a financial loss. According to the Cost of Data Breach 2017, the average cost of a data breach has reached $3.62 million with the estimated stolen and lost record of $141.
• Loss of sensitive data – Reputational and financial loss can be disastrous. However, hackers can also target designs, and blueprints in many cases. The loss of data can harm any organizational competitiveness. According to a study, 60% of hacks target small businesses as they are easier to target.
• Loss of sales – Losing reputation also leads to a loss of people resulting in a sales decrease. If current customers lose trust in an organization, then they start looking for another service. That results in negative reports on the growth of the company.

Solutions to reduce the risk of Data Privacy Breach

Data breaches can be extremely expensive and can cause an organization to go under. That’s why cybersecurity is very important.  

The following are a few tips to prevent data breaches: – 

• Install modern anti-virus software and firewalls to prevent data breaches and help to keep systems secure.
• Data can be taken from old hardware even if it is deleted. So, destroy the old hardware drives to protect from a data privacy breach.
• Create a proper and detailed plan in response to data breaches.

• Regularly update the privacy policy, websites, and procedures of the system. Since system and software updates mostly impact cybersecurity.
• Conduct regular training for the employees in doing accurate data processing so that they can pay attention to detail.
• According to data, more than 80% of data breaches are due to weak passwords. Now, password cracking technology is more advanced, and using simple passwords can’t work for hackers. So, use strong passwords for documents that are crucial for an organization.

Conclusion

Every business needs to understand cybersecurity and should take responsibility to work against cyber criminals. Any organization needs to take all the necessary safety measures to protect its data from data breaches. Preventing data from data breaches is not just about good business practice but avoiding the financial costs due to data breaches. 

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