Data Breach

A Data Breach is an incident where information is stolen or taken from a system without the knowledge or authorization of the system’s owner. A small company or large organization may suffer a data breach. Stolen data may involve sensitive, proprietary, or confidential information such as credit card numbers, customer data, trade secrets, or matters of national security.

A data breach may include incidents such as theft or loss of digital media such as computer tapes, hard drives, or laptop computers containing such media upon which such information is stored unencrypted, posting such information on the world wide web or on a computer otherwise accessible from the Internet without proper information security precautions, transfer of such information to a system which is not completely open but is not appropriately or formally accredited for security at the approved level, such as unencrypted e-mail, or transfer of such information to the information systems of a possibly hostile agency, such as a competing corporation or a foreign nation, where it may be exposed to more intensive decryption techniques.

ISO/IEC 27040 defines a data breach as: compromise of security that leads to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure of, or access to protected data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed.

See Also

• Information Security
• Cyber Crime
• Cyber Security
• Data
• Data Access
• Data Analysis
• Data Analytics
• Data Architecture
• Data Asset Framework (DAF)
• Data Buffer
• Data Center
• Data Center Infrastructure
• Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM)
• Data Cleansing
• Data Compatibility
• Data Governance
• Data Integration
• Data Management
• Data Mining
• Data Monitoring
• Data Munging
• Data Portability
• Data Quality
• Data Reference Model (DRM)
• Data Security
• Data Transformation
• Data Visualization
• Data Warehouse