What Happens to An Organization After a Data Breach?

Cybersecurity is a topic of interest and an issue that holds paramount importance in today’s digital era. As more and more enterprises and small medium businesses are embracing cloud and other new age digital technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning, cybersecurity has become indispensible to organizations. In the cyber security space, the most essential aspect is to anticipate cyberattacks. However, sadly not many organizations are able to do that hence leading to a data breach.

So, in case a data breach takes place, what happens to the organization in question? It varies from organization to organization, says Esti Peshin, General Manager of the Cyber Division at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). “There are organizations where information is the key and when such information is breached, then the organization may lose its financial sustainability. There are organizations where the integrity of the information is key,” she adds while stating that the fact that there is a data breach might not be an issue unless someone tampers with the data.

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Esti, in an exclusive interview with DataQuest, gave an example of a hospital to explain the above mentioned scenario saying if there is a data breach in a hospital and medical records are stolen, the hospital can still operate even though the issue of privacy arises. However, if the medical records are tampered with and doctors do not know which treatment to give which patient then the hospital is rendered feeble.

When a data breach takes place, three elements come into question namely confidentiality, integrity and availability. Each of these three elements has their balance and relevance in the overall scheme of events, says Esti. The financial aspect comes into play as well when an organization suffers a data breach. There will be organizations that are significantly harmed, while some may be hardly harmed.

Esti feels that the Facebook data breach, though it involved 50 million accounts, could just be a minor breach as there is no credit card or private information involved. However, it does not necessarily mean that there is no impact. Esti added that although nobody knew what happened or the kind of damage that took place, Facebook’s stocks crashed.

Esti says that constant innovation is extremely essential when it comes to cybersecurity for as the cyber domain is evolving, new threats are emerging as well. The solutions of today are not adequate for the threats of tomorrow. Also, every person in this world should be aware of cyberthreats and protect themselves against it, she adds.