When It Comes to Data Breaches, It's Not About 'If', It's About 'When'

As if the initial revelation of Equifax’s 2017 data exposure wasn’t terrible enough, it has now been reported that there are even more victims than we initially believed. While news like this is obviously never positive, it can produce a silver lining if the opportunities that said news presents are taken advantage of.

Last Year's Equifax Breach
You may remember that last year it was discovered that Equifax, one of the three major credit reporting bureaus, had been breached. As a result of this cyberattack, approximately 143 million people were potentially affected, with numerous forms of personally identifiable information made available for cybercriminals to utilize. This meant that 44 percent of the United States’ total population could have their information exposed and available to cybercriminals.

Next, it was announced in October of 2017 that an investigation revealed that 2.5 million more people were exposed than they initially thought, bringing the total number of potential victims up to 145.5 million.

Alas, it now seem this is a running total.

Equifax has since unearthed 2.4 million more victims, whose names and partial driver's license numbers were accessed and pilfered. Luckily, this data, while not exactly worthless, is of limited value to a hacker, especially in comparison to the data that other victims lost, like Social Security numbers. Nonetheless, it is still imperative to view reminders of events like the Equifax breach as what they are: reminders and an opportunity to reflect on what is to be learned from events like these.

What to Learn from the Breach
There are a few lessons to be learned from a data breach event. The initial lesson to absorb is: there is always going to be another data breach.

The regrettable reality is, with precious information stored by so many entities, data is always at risk of being stolen. So much information is shared that it is now more probable than merely possible for one’s data to be breached. As a user in this dark moden world, there are steps you need to take to prepare for this paradigm.

You need to be prepared on a personal level. No matter how cautious you are about your personal data, you need to accept that it will likely be stolen one day, and not necessarily from you. As the Equifax breach and countless others have shown, the organizations that collect your data aren’t always storing it in the most secure way. So, even if you shred your bank statements and follow all the rules in regards to your passwords, there’s still a chance that your data could find its way into cybercriminal's hands thanks to someone else’s unfortunate luck negligence.

This is why you must be prepared to both prevent and uncover attempts of crimes such as identity theft. This can be accomplished through the utilization of credit freezes, locks, and alerts.

You also must be prepared to share this information with your clients and customers, should you find that your records were breached. Taking ownership of the event and doing everything possible to help those involved through it will help limit the ill will that is felt toward your organization.

Still, data breaches aren’t going to stop happening anytime soon. As an organization, it is up to you to best prepare for them, and should one strike, handle it as best you can. Macro Systems can help. Call us today at 703-359-9211.