Difference Between a Data Breach and Security Incident?

If you think a data breach can’t happen to you, think again: According to the Ponemon Institute’s Fifth Annual Benchmark Study on Privacy and Security of Healthcare Data,criminal attacks are up 125 percent compared to five years ago. And that’s just in the healthcare sector.

Now more than ever, organizations need a primer on how to protect sensitive data. With cyber crime attacks on the rise, it’s critical to understand what a data breach is, how it differs from a security incident and how to plan a data breach response.

Incident vs. Breach

Think of a security incident as a pesky cold that may sideline you for a couple days, but clears up fairly quickly. It’s any event that violates an organization’s security or privacy policies around sensitive information like Social Security numbers or confidential medical records. This can be anything from a misplaced drive to missing paper files.

A data breach Myrtle Beach, on the other hand, is like the nastiest flu bug ever — a whopper of a virus that will knock you off your feet.  The folks at ID Experts define it as a security incident that meets specific legal definitions per state and federal laws.

Specifically, data breaches require notification to the affected individuals, regulatory agencies, and sometimes credit reporting agencies and media.

 

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Security Incidents Are Status Quo

Security incidents are, sadly, part of the status quo — with 65 percent of healthcare organizations reporting having experienced electronic information-based security incidents over the past two years, according to the Ponemon study.

While not all security incidents escalate into data breaches, there’s a regulatory obligation to complete an incident risk assessment when PHI (protected health information) or PII (personally identifiable information) is compromised.

Responding Effectively

When an incident does escalate into a data breach, a quick and effective response is critical. This requires close collaboration across the company or organization, not just IT. Stakeholders in legal, marketing, public relations, the C-Suite and other functions have to be prepared to own a piece of the incident response and work together in a fairly seamless manner.

The first two, vital steps following a data breach are 1) Quantify the damage; and 2) Determine your response.

To address the first, quantifying damage, it helps to know at any point in time what information requires the most protection, where it’s stored and how it’s protected. At SpartanTec, Inc. we recommend performing periodic cyber threat assessments to develop this understanding.

In respect to step two, determining response, this is essential to managing enterprise risk and can quell fears, especially when the breach is more serious than initially thought, when credit monitoring isn’t enough and when media interest is high.

It requires data breach agility. Organizations with high data breach agility are more likely to have cybersecurity platforms that optimize visibility and the sharing of actionable threat intelligence between prevention and detection tools and across endpoints, data centers and the cloud.

 

This is among the advantages of the security fabric. Based on open APIs, it links together different security sensors and tools to collect real threat data, enabling technology and people to more effectively coordinate and respond to potential threats. Contact SpartanTec, Inc. to learn more.

 

SpartanTec, Inc.
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
(843) 420-9760
https://www.spartantec.com/

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence

Morgan Stanley Banking Latest To Get Hit By Data Breach

Data breach continue to evolve as the hackers themselves get increasingly sophisticated. One of the most recent victims is investment banking giant Morgan Stanley. Their network was breached after the attackers stole personal information belonging to their customers by hacking into an Accellion FTA server belonging to a third-party vendor, then using that information to breach Morgan Stanley's network.

The third-party vendor in question, Guidehouse, provides account maintenance service to Morgan Stanley. They notified the banking giant back in May that they had been breached and that some information belonging to Morgan Stanley customers had been compromised.

At this time it is unclear just how many of Morgan Stanley's customers have been impacted, but the company is in the process of reaching out to all who were impacted to let them know. Although the company has not indicated as much, it's fairly standard practice for firms to offer 1-2 years of credit protection to customers who have had their data compromised. Odds are excellent that this will be the case here. Although again, that has not been confirmed at this point.

 

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In any case, this is a serious cybersecurity breach, regardless of scope and scale, because the hackers were able to make off with both encrypted files and the decryption key to unlock them.

The stolen data includes:

• Stock plan participants' name
• Physical address
• Date of birth
• Social security number
• And company name, where applicable

In other words, more than enough information to steal an individual's identity.

If you bank with Morgan Stanley, be on the lookout for a letter from the company and watch your credit statements like a hawk. If you want to take a more proactive stance, give them a call to verify whether or not you are among the impacted users.

 

Call SpartanTec, Inc. now if you want to protect your business against cyberthreats.

 

SpartanTec, Inc.
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
(843) 420-9760
https://www.spartantec.com/

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence