Many of us have received one at some point or another, the dreaded message informing you about your personal information possibly being compromised during a data breach of a company you have used before. But what exactly is a data breach, how do they happen, how can we prevent them and what do you do if your data is stolen?

What is a data breach and how do they happen?

A data breach occurs when cybercriminals use cyberattacks, such as exploits, SQL injections, spyware or phishing to gain unauthorized access to a company’s/individual’s system or network with the design to steal sensitive information and financial data of the users or customers who do business with that company. So, cybercriminals literally breach the company’s/individual’s cybersecurity defenses to extract sensitive data that they can then either sell or use to make fraudulent purchases or identity theft. 

What you should do if your data is stolen:

• Reset your password for the compromised account and other accounts that share that password.

• Monitor your credit accounts for any suspicious activity

• You could consider a credit freeze, which makes it more difficult to open up a new line of credit, but you will have to contact each credit bureau to do this (and to remove the freeze)

• Watch your email inbox carefully. Those alert messages you receive when your information has been compromised in a breach could be phishing emails spoofed to resemble a legitimate alert from the affected account. You can read more on how to recognize phishing scams here and about spoofing here.

• Considers using a credit monitoring service

• Use multi-factor authentication (MFA)

How does BeCloud help to prevent data breaches:

• We design data segmentation into our solutions

• Enforce the principle of least privilege in the systems we manage

• We provide good cybersecurity programs including monitoring and auditing