A data breach is an incredibly dangerous thing to happen to any business. It can cause a massive disruption to your daily activities, cause lost revenue, and reputational damage, and cause concern for investors and future customers. If you are a company based in London and you are wondering about whether or not you need help with protection against data breaches, search for an experienced IT support in London service. That way you’ll have peace of mind that experts are on your side, protecting all the sensitive, personal data that your company collects and stores.
Below are some of the most common types of data breaches and how they have impacted the companies that have suffered them.
A malware virus
A virus or malware can be sent to a computer with the aim of wiping out the data. This is harmful to any business that is reliant on data and information on a constant basis (which is the vast majority in this day and age). A malware virus sent to a health institution, for example, could cause problems for patients if data and critical information is deleted.
DDoS attack
Large companies often find this type of attack is the most common, especially in sectors that some activists feel to be unethical or moving in dubious moral waters. Big pharmaceutical companies come under attack from Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, where it makes it impossible for users to log in and use the system. This disables the company for a period of time.
Ransomware
A ransomware attack is when you receive a message that your computer or mobile phone has been hacked. The message will be clear with its intentions, asking for money in exchange for your privacy. If you pay a certain amount of money within a certain amount of time, your data will not be released to the public. Many companies across myriad sectors experience ransomware attacks every year, ranging from small amounts of cash requested to millions in the worst cases. This is why you should hire a professional IT support company to avoid the release of important or compromising materials.
Passwords guessed
We all know how important it is to change your passwords regularly, and to make them as long and complicated as possible, and not just the name of your pet combined with your date of birth. The problem in a business setting is that you might have hundreds of employees, each with their own unique password, and this causes potential vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit. If passwords are stolen this can cause huge damage to your company, and it happens quite often. Some companies will leave passwords for employees on notes that anyone can access, others are hacked through a brute-force attack. If your password is stolen it is easy to find your files and information, leading easily onto the files and information for the company as a whole.
Recording keystrokes
Malware sent to you via email can log the keys you press on your keyboard. This surreptitious analysis of your keystrokes provides the hacker with everything you type on your keyboard and can be used to help access sensitive data through passwords. This could potentially happen on a work or a personal computer and literally everything you type is recorded, including passwords, credit card information, and private conversations you may be having with friends. This information is easy to use against a company of any kind.
Phishing
A phishing attack comes from third-party hackers where a site is created to look genuine and entice a user in to input information. They might mirror an existing third-party payment system (such as PayPal as an example) and ask the user to log into the site for a mandatory information update. If the user does so, they’ve given their password over to a hacker. Always be wary of emails that you receive that could be a phishing attack, and never click on a link unless you are 100% sure it has come from a trusted source.
For companies based in the capital, big
or small, there is a real need to seek out IT support in London to help guard
against a data breach. As you can see, there are some significant consequences
to suffering a data breach, and quite a few different types of data breach and
cyber-attack to be aware of. It is always best to be completely aware of the
potential problems to look out for. Working with a professional IT support
company with experience in handling data breach protection for a wide range of
businesses will give you peace of mind as a business owner that your data and
information is looked after in the best possible way.
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