<aside> 💡 Security and data breaches are serious violations that occur when sensitive, protected, or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen, or used by someone who is not authorized to do so. This page aims to educate readers about security breaches and data breaches. To help readers better understand how serious breaches are, this page also includes the consequences of breaches and how they can impact individuals and organizations, as well as a list of the four largest breaches that occurred in Canada.
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A security breach occurs when an intruder bypasses the security mechanisms of an organization and gains unauthorized access to its security systems and data, giving them access to a device, network, application, or database. When a system has a security breach, the repercussions can be disastrous, leading to ransomware attacks, illegal data leaks and other cybercrimes. A security breach can also destroy a company’s revenues and reputation.
A data breach occurs when cybercriminals have granted unlawful access to sensitive and confidential information that should have been kept private and protected. Security weaknesses can lead to unauthorized data breaches, which can have serious repercussions. Some of the data breaches that can occur are drive-by downloads, hacking attacks, phishing, software bugs, brute force attacks, password cracking and social engineering.
Common vulnerabilities that are targeted by malicious criminals are
Although security breach and data breach are frequently used interchangeably, they are two distinct concepts. A security breach is followed by a data breach. To more clearly comprehend the differences between the two concepts, we will compare the two concepts to a break in. A security breach is like a burglar who climbs through the window and a data breach is the burglar stealing and escaping with the valuables.
Breaches can occur in less than a minute but it may take weeks for individuals to realize the occurrence.