Data Breach

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A data breach is the intentional or unintentional release of secure information to an untrusted environment. Other terms for this phenomenon include unintentional information disclosure, data leak and also data spill. Incidents range from concerted attack by black hats with the backing of organized crime or national governments to careless disposal of used computer equipment or data storage media. Definition "A data breach is a security incident in which sensitive, protected or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by an individual unauthorized to do so." Data breaches may involve financial information such as credit card or bank details, personal health information (PHI), Personally identifiable information (PII), trade secrets of corporations or intellectual property. According to the nonprofit consumer organization Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a total of 227,052,199 individual records containing sensitive personal information were involved in security breaches in the United States between January 2005 and May 2008, excluding incidents where sensitive data was apparently not actually exposed.


Data breach. In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 09, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_breach


Definition of Data Breach

Data breach is the illegal activity of accessing or retrieving data from an encrypted database. A hacker can execute a data breach over the internet or network. Victims of data breaches are usually large corporations or organizations that have databases with sensitive information. Data breaches usually result in a loss of financial, personal or health information. They can occur as cybercrime activity or due to human error.

The definition of a data breach is when an incident occurs in which confidential and sensitive data has been stolen or viewed by an unauthorized individual. Types of data that may be involved include personal health information (PHI) and personally identifiable information (PII). [1]

A recent example of a data breach in healthcare affected the UCLA Health System in which 4.5 million people's data ranging from names, Social Security numbers, medical numbers and addresses were stolen. Medical data can put your finances at risk as well as the mixing of medical records.[2]

References

  1. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/data-breach
  2. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2015/07/24/steve-weisman-health-care-data-breach/30593661/