Over view:
A data breach can have severe consequences for a business. A company’s failure to keep their customers’ information safe can lead to potential fines and damaged customer relationships. One of the biggest concerns for businesses is the impact of a data breach on their reputation and how their customers will receive the news.
Once customers are notified that their data has been compromised, they may be understandably upset and concerned. This could lead to a decrease in market valuation, delay acquisition or partnership deals with other companies, and also cause heavy fines and penalties from regulatory authorities like the GDPR.
These effects are often long-term and they can be devastating.
You don’t want your customers’ information to be leaked. Customers value their privacy as well and data breaches that involve customers’ information can have major consequences for your company.
They might stop doing business with your organization and choose an alternative organization that promises to offer more security.
Losing intellectual property can also impact the competitiveness of your company. Some rivals might not hesitate to take advantage of your company’s stolen data such as market analysis, customers’ personal information including their names, contact details, bank account information, etc.
On the other hand, some attackers may want to do simple website defacement. In such cases, a data breach might only lead to a few changes on your company’s website. While this might seem relatively harmless, it can be very embarrassing for your company. Alternatively, an attacker may make changes to your site that can lead to further compromise of your networks or of your clients.
Here’s a quick look at the most severe long-term effects of a data breach. This will help you understand the most significant ramifications of a data breach and why it’s important to secure your business’s data.
Author Bio – Aaron Cure: Aaron Cure is the Principal Security Consultant at Cypress Data Defense and an instructor and contributing author for the Dev544 Secure Coding in .NET course. After 10 years in the U.S. Army, I decided to switch my focus to developing security tools and performing secure code reviews, penetration testing, static source code analysis, and security research.
