A data leak occurs when sensitive information is unintentionally exposed to unauthorized parties, including hackers and criminals. The damage can be severe and long-term. Whether the information is personally identifiable information (PII), trade secrets or even customer credit card data, the costs and risks can be high for organizations and their customers.
Companies grow, change, and evolve over time as they expand, innovate, and add new technology to their systems. But these evolutions may leave old or outdated data vulnerable to hackers or malicious insiders. Human error, misconfigured infrastructure and even software vulnerabilities can lead to data leaks.
Those vulnerabilities and weaknesses can be used to exploit information, steal login credentials and gain access to systems. This unauthorized access can then be used to commit identity theft and financial fraud. Or, attackers can use the compromised data in ransomware attacks by encrypting and blocking access to systems until a monetary payment is made.
The cost of a data leak can also be devastating to a company’s reputation and its ability to attract future customers, investors or employees. Moreover, the loss of a company’s IP can have a profound impact on its competitiveness, innovation, and growth.
The most common causes of a data leak include laptops lost or stolen, unsecured USB storage devices, and misconfigured cloud environments. These can all lead to the exposure of personal, financial or proprietary information. This information can be sold on the dark web, or it can be used by threat actors in cyberattacks like phishing and social engineering. Credential exposures, which involve the leak of passwords or account credentials, is another common type of data leak. These credentials can be found on the dark web or in breach repositories, providing attackers with direct entry into systems.