What is a Data Breach? Types, and Prevention Tips

The risks of important information being leaked to the wrong people have gradually increased over the past few years. In the last year, 422.61 million data records were exposed through various breaches that targeted numerous people and organizations. This is indicative of the fact that attackers are now looking for new vectors in cloud ecosystems, supply chains, and remote working structures. As a result, it becomes crucial to have an understanding of what is data breach, the different types of data breach attacks, and how to prevent data exposure.

In this article, let us define data breaches to make sure that organizations grasp the risks associated with them. Next, we will discuss data breach methods, including social engineering and insider threats, and provide real-life data breach examples to emphasize the consequences. We will also examine the data breach cycle, data breach use cases, and data breach challenges that affect detection and resolution. Last but not least, we will discuss micro segmentation advanced monitoring and present how SentinelOne provides powerful data breach prevention and data breach detection.

What is a Data Breach?

A data breach definition can best be illustrated as an event in which a third party gains unauthorized access to an organization’s information, usually through hacking, password theft, or even an insider attack. The average cost of such an incident is said to be $4.88 million globally, which includes the cost of detection, the time lost due to the breach, the cost of managing the aftermath, and fines for non-compliance. When explaining what is data breach, one should take into account not only the external attacks, such as hackers, but also internal mistakes, like incorrect server setups, or unencrypted backups. The size of these breaches can be staggering, with intellectual property, customer PII, or even entire corporate strategies being stolen in a matter of hours. With new infiltration techniques emerging at an alarming rate, companies and organizations from across the globe remain under pressure to tighten their security to avoid falling prey to hackers.

How Does a Data Breach Occur?

It might be possible that many individuals are still confused about what are data breaches or how they occur. While complex attacks that exploit zero-day vulnerabilities grab the attention of the media, the majority of cyber attacks result from basic mistakes such as using the same password or not updating software. For instance, 44% of the businesses did not provide particular cybersecurity training for remote work risks, making them vulnerable. Below are four infiltration vectors that contribute to these security failures escalating into devastating data breaches. It is important to recognize these root causes in order to develop effective measures to prevent data breaches.

1. Social Engineering & Phishing: Cybercriminals often mimic recognizable people, such as a company’s human resource department or familiar vendors, with the aim of making the employee reveal passwords or open malicious files. Such attacks may not need much hacking expertise and are carried out due to the carelessness of users. Once criminals have gained valid credentials, they are in a position to increase their level of privilege and exfiltrate data. The education of the regular staff and the multi-factor authentication prevent intrusion from these trickery-based data breaches.
2. Exploiting Unpatched Software: The lack of timely updates creates an open door for system vulnerability, making it easy for hackers to infiltrate and cause data breaches. Cybercriminals actively search for vulnerable IP addresses, outdated operating systems, or code with open vulnerabilities that are already in the public domain. Once infiltration is achieved, criminals go further into the networks or search through file shares. Strict adherence to patching cycles and real-time scanning significantly minimize the number of routes by which malware gains entry, leading to data breaches.
3. Insider Threats & Negligence: There is always a possibility of infiltration from inside the organization through a lost USB drive or an angry employee. Sometimes, staff underestimate the level of data sensitivity and send emails containing spreadsheets to external parties. Malicious insiders, on the other hand, may take information deliberately for their own benefit, thus creating data breaches from inside the company’s firewall. In such cases, factors such as strict user access, short time usage, and monitoring make it difficult to infiltrate.
4. Supply Chain Compromise: Most businesses use third-party service providers for storage, analytics, or modules, all of which can be infiltration points. If the environment of a partner is infiltrated, criminals can move deeper to the core of the main enterprise network or steal shared files. This infiltration technique is an excellent example of how attacks may start even outside the organization’s security perimeter. In addition to a resilient vendor risk management framework, short-lived integration tokens slow down penetration from malicious partners.

Common Causes of Data Breaches

Even organizations that use modern tools to combat threats can still be vulnerable if they fail to assess the underlying risks properly. Knowledge of the main reasons that lead to data breaches can help to enhance existing protection measures. In this section, we explain four common oversights that tend to lead to data infiltration incidents that are repeated quite often.

1. Weak Passwords & Credential Reuse: People who use short and easily guessable passphrases allow hackers to enter via the infiltration doors, targeting big databases of stolen credentials. Attackers try out these combos on many accounts and get in once they are lucky enough to find a match. Multi-factor authentication, short-lived sessions, and regular password changes prevent the attacker from leveraging compromised credentials. Finally, it is important to note that staff training is still the key to preventing the infiltration that results from lax passphrase practices.
2. Misconfigured Cloud Services: Rushed cloud adoption can lead to minimal attention to access reviews, and S3 buckets or container services may become publicly accessible. Breach actors actively seek these misconfigurations and quickly extract data from these oversights. This makes it easier for hackers to infiltrate the system and gain access to large chunks of data within a short span of time, especially if there is no encryption or traffic monitoring in the environment. Thus, the utilization of ephemeral usage, limitation of default privileges, as well as the search for open endpoints help minimize infiltration.
3. Outdated or Legacy Systems: Some departments have outdated, niche programs that remain locked in a state of perpetual beta with no production releases or security fixes. These are often overlooked by developers and can be exploited by attackers if the code is not updated with modern encryption or logging. After gaining an initial foothold, cybercriminals switch gears, stealing databases or placing covert backdoors. Constant modernization and introducing the zero-trust security model prevent infiltration from these overlooked software areas.
4. Insufficient Incident Response: A late response to infiltration can lead to a small problem becoming a big issue. Without real-time detection or well-rehearsed response drills, businesses lose precious time in investigating such activities. Such time gaps are abused by attackers for exfiltrating additional data or deleting logs, which complicates the process of investigation. In this case, combining scanning with immediate forensic analysis helps reduce the time spent by the intruders inside the network, preventing further data breaches.

Types of Data Breaches

Before we discuss how to deal with infiltration, it is essential to understand what type of data breach criminals usually use. These include hacking attacks that are extremely sophisticated and organized all the way to unintentional mistakes by insiders that compromise large amounts of information. In the following section, we classify major breach variants that form the data breach cycle, each of which has different angles of intrusion and difficulties.

1. External Hacking: Here, criminals get into an organization through weaknesses in the networks, unpatched operating systems, and other known vulnerabilities in software. Once they gain access to the system, they gain higher-level privileges and start searching for important information. Some of these techniques include SQL injection and remote code execution, which can lead to a breach that may go unnoticed for several weeks. Stringent code scanning and temporary use help prevent invasion from well-known threats.
2. Insider Leaks: Negligence by employees or insider threats can lead to leaks and allow staff to mirror entire databases or forward sensitive documents to their personal mailboxes. These records can also be manipulated or leaked by disgruntled workers who contribute to large-scale data breaches. Accidental leakage or loss of physical media can also cause infiltration nightmares. Zero-trust frameworks, temporary privileges, and comprehensive logging make it difficult for attackers to infiltrate from internal access.
3. Credential Stuffing: Hackers who obtained password sets from previous cyber attacks attempt to log in to new sites and applications using the same credentials. If an employee uses the same login credentials at their workplace and other personal accounts, the chances of infiltration increase significantly. The infiltration might remain subtle if staff does not frequently monitor the logs or has no reason to doubt the legitimacy of the login. The implementation of a strict passphrase policy, as well as the use of multi-factor authentication minimizes the cases of intrusion from credential stuffing attacks.
4. Ransomware & Double Extortion: While not all ransomware attacks are initially focused solely on data theft, many use it to steal data and threaten to release it if the victim does not pay. Attackers thus have both system availability and data confidentiality threatened, and as a result, the impact of a data breach is compounded. Controlling outbound connections and temporary connections prevents intrusion from dangerous ransomware attacks. Despite backups, cybercriminals continue to extort their victims using the stolen information.
5. Cloud Service Misconfiguration: With the increased adoption of containers, serverless or cloud-based DR, unreviewed configurations can lead to exposed endpoints. This infiltration vector gives criminals direct access to the stored data, with little or no encryption involved. Most big data breaches originate from open S3 buckets or improperly configured Azure Blob storage containers. Scanning, temporary use, and default encryption limit infiltration from these oversights.
6. DNS Hijacking or Domain Spoofing: Cybercriminals alter DNS records or domain configurations to redirect website traffic to different malicious IPs or mimic a brand. The infiltration then captures user credentials or intercepts files from unsuspecting staff. Sometimes, partial infiltration can occur when organizations fail to implement the two-factor domain management or the advanced domain locks. Real-time DNS monitoring, as well as temporary use, make it difficult for intruders to succeed in infiltrating and identifying unusual domain changes.
7. Physical Theft or Device Loss: Despite the growing prominence of digital infiltration, stolen laptops, flash drives, or even backup disks represent a large infiltration type. This is because criminals can easily read or copy data offline, thus avoiding network security solutions. This infiltration is usually done with the user being unaware of the potential value that local data might hold. Measures such as enforcing disk encryption, using devices only for temporary purposes, or wiping devices remotely slow down infiltration by theft.

Key Phases of a Data Breach

Regardless of whether the breach comes from an outsider or an insider attack, data breaches follow a pattern. Identifying these phases reduces the time taken in detection and enhances response time and efficiency. In this article, we identify five common stages in the data breach process so that organizations can prevent infiltration from progressing.

1. Reconnaissance & Targeting: Initially, threat actors search the internet or social media to look for entry points, such as unpatched servers or stolen login information from previous data breaches. They also collect information on the employee’s position or software that is frequently used. This infiltration prep ensures that criminals target the most valuable systems or users who are not very wise in their use of the systems. In this way, by utilizing ephemeral usage together with threat intelligence feeds, defenders slow down intruders at the recon phase.
2. Initial Compromise: First, cybercriminals obtain initial access to the network through phishing, credential stuffing, or an exploited vulnerability. They may establish a backdoor and intercept traffic, which allows an intrusion to go unnoticed especially in an environment that does not have a real-time detection system in place. In this environment, the length of time attackers spend in the network can be attributed to the attacker’s skills and lack of organizational supervision. Multi-factor authentication, ephemeral privileges, or advanced scanning hinder the progression of infiltration from becoming more complex after initial compromise.
3. Lateral Movement & Escalation: Inside the network, intruders move laterally across the network, looking for domain admin or other high-privileged accounts or data assets. If the network is not composed of a segmented architecture or has no zero-trust mechanisms in place, infiltration success multiplies further by reusing stolen credentials. Attackers could also leverage identified data breach risks, including unused test networks or outdated backup servers. Micro segmentation, usage on a short-term basis, and correlation logs prevent infiltration from escalating to the level of systematic sabotage.
4. Data Extraction: Once attackers identify valuable datasets, such as customer PII or company IP, they collect and transfer them to other servers. This infiltration step can remain stealthy if defenders have no outbound traffic monitoring or if the alert thresholds are for large file transfers. Once the data is leaked, brand reputations can be destroyed within a short span of time if criminals release or sell it. Real-time monitoring of anomalous traffic patterns, as well as temporary access, prevent infiltration from leading to more serious exfiltration.
5. Cover-Up & Post-Exploitation: Last but not least, criminals clear logs, disable security measures, or hide redirection mechanisms to return to the environment. This infiltration stage means repeated sabotage or data extraction if staff never patch the root cause. Meanwhile, organizations are trying to find out the extent of the infiltration and how to deal with the negative publicity it has brought. The morphing of infiltration attempts into repeated cycles is limited by thorough forensics, short usage duration, and quick identification.

Data Breach Challenges

Despite comprehending the infiltration threats, an organization can still be vulnerable to data breaches, and this can be attributed to factors such as a shortage of skills, expansion to multiple clouds, and reliance on vendors. By identifying these challenges to data breaches, security leaders can direct their efforts to where the enemy tends to infiltrate. Below are the four significant barriers that hinder the establishment of effective data breach detection and remediation:

1. Skilled Labor Shortage & Overstretched Teams: Most security teams have too many responsibilities, such as patching, encryption deployment, or real-time scanning, with inadequate resources. This lack of monitoring means that infiltration angles are left unguarded, and criminals are able to carry out their activities for months. In the long run, skill gaps hinder the use of ephemeral or advanced correlation for infiltration detection. This way, having specialized training or automation tools guarantees the infiltration angles get the necessary supervision.
2. Rapid Tech Shifts & Cloud Migrations: Companies often implement containers, microservices, or third-party APIs before they can implement the security measures needed to protect them. These are temporary environments or subdomains that often go unnoticed by organizations’ security personnel, and the attackers take advantage of them to gain entry into an organization and steal data. The risk of infiltration escalates when dev teams do not adhere to the norm of having gating or scanning pipelines. Through the integration of ephemeral usage, the expansion stays anti-infiltration when merged with zero-trust policies.
3. Vendor & Supply Chain Complexity: Today, organizations are heavily dependent on a web of third parties for analytics, hosting, or code subcomponents. One weak link can be used to gain access and spread throughout the entire chain, resulting in a data leak. With no regular vendor audits or temporary integration tokens, infiltration remains a constant threat waiting to disrupt operations. Performing proper risk assessments and real-time scanning also helps prevent intrusion from unaccredited supply chain affiliates.
4. Budget Constraints & Reactive Cultures: Some C-suites increase the security funding only after infiltration while neglecting subtle signs of infiltration or avoiding deep scanning solutions. This short-sighted approach means that criminals target known weaknesses or other remaining misconfigurations. In each expansion, the temporary use of infiltration detection is combined with daily development tasks, thus linking infiltration sustainability throughout the organization. Yet many remain reactive, fueling repeated data breach headlines.

Data Breach Best Practices

Combating infiltration threats requires comprehensive frameworks that would cover the scanning aspect, staff awareness, and deeper incident-handling measures. By implementing these data breach best practices, organizations lower the success rate of infiltration and also lessen the impacts of criminal penetration into the organization’s security perimeter. Here are four general principles that protect valuable information and slow down intruders:

1. Implement Strong Access Control Measures & RBAC: Restricting staff access to only what is required reduces the risk of insiders or stolen credentials gaining access to the networks. Access must be as temporary as roles or accounts, accessing being removed if roles or positions change. Through repeated expansions, ephemeral usage intertwines infiltration detection with normal operations so that infiltration cannot exploit any residual permissions. Zero-trust frameworks integrate micro-segmentation with these concepts of minimal access.
2. Implement Multi-Factor Authentication: If criminals try to guess or phish for the user’s password, they cannot get in if a second authentication factor is required. This approach remains relevant, especially for employees working remotely or in organizations that allow the use of personal devices for work since it offers protection from passing by mere passphrase theft. Staff should also use temporary tokens that have a short lifespan, which also makes it difficult for intruders to penetrate. When 2FA is implemented, such attacks that attempt to utilize password spraying or replay are easily thwarted.
3. Create and practice incident response plans: Although infiltration is still possible, timely containment significantly minimizes the extent of data leaks. A clear plan helps to define responsibilities, decision-making, and reporting for staff or other interested parties. In each successive expansion, temporary usage eliminates the distinction between infiltration detection and initial assessment, interconnecting infiltration viability with daily preparedness. Through realistic data breach exercises, teams optimize response time and collaboration, significantly reducing the dwell time of infiltrations.
4. Practice Frequent Backups & Offline Replication: In the worst-case infiltration scenarios, for example, mass encryption or mass deletion, backups are vital for the business to continue. Such information should be kept off the internet or in read-only databases to prevent its misuse by criminals with partial access. With each expansion, transient use becomes intertwined with real-time captures, connecting infiltration durability with the lowest RTO (Recovery Time Objective). This approach ensures that data is kept secure and recoverable even if it compromises production environments.

How can Enterprises Stay Ahead of Data Breaches?

Enterprises can stay ahead of data breaches by implementing several security measures. These can include:

1. Implementing strong authentication methods to prevent unauthorized access to systems and data.
2. Conducting regular security assessments and audits to identify and address vulnerabilities.
3. Implementing data encryption and other security controls to protect sensitive data from unauthorized access.
4. Providing training and education to employees on data security and best practices.
5. Implementing incident response plans to quickly and effectively respond to potential data breaches.
6. Developing partnerships with cybersecurity experts and organizations to gain access to the latest threat intelligence and security solutions.
7. Regularly monitoring and analyzing network traffic to identify and respond to potential threats.

By implementing these measures, enterprises can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches and protect their systems and data from potential threats.

How Do Enterprises Handle a Data Breach?

In the case of a data breach, enterprises are required to follow certain legal requirements depending on the location and industry. These requirements may include notification of affected individuals, notification of relevant authorities, and implementation of a plan to prevent future breaches. Enterprises may also be required to provide information about the breach and its impact on regulatory bodies. They may face fines or penalties if they fail to comply with these requirements.

When a data breach occurs, enterprises typically have a specific plan to handle the situation. This plan may involve steps such as:

1. Identifying the source of the breach and taking immediate steps to contain it.
2. Conducting a thorough investigation to determine the extent of the breach and the types of data that were compromised.
3. Notifying affected individuals and regulatory authorities, as required by law.
4. Implementing additional security measures to prevent future breaches.
5. Support affected individuals, such as credit monitoring and identity theft protection services.
6. Working with law enforcement to investigate the breach and bring any perpetrators to justice.

The worst part of handling a data breach is the potential damage to an organization’s reputation and the trust of its customers. Data breaches can also lead to financial losses, regulatory fines, and legal consequences. The aftermath of a data breach can be complex and difficult to manage, and it can take a significant amount of time and resources to recover from the damage.

Data Breach Prevention and Mitigation Tips

A single infiltration can bring down the reputation of a brand or attract penalties from the regulators. The integration of multi-layered security, as well as constant scanning is essential for a strong data breach prevention strategy. Here, we present four strategic tips that combine infiltration detection with proactive prevention so that criminals can be successful only to a limited extent.

1. Map & Classify All Data Assets: Determine which databases, file shares, or cloud repositories contain sensitive information. This infiltration-scope awareness assists in focusing encryption, access controls, or advanced scanning on value assets. Through repeated expansions, temporary usage blends infiltration detection with daily environment mapping. Through the categorization of data, staff is able to address infiltration alerts more effectively and reduce unauthorized usage.
2. Integrate Threat Intelligence Feeds: Criminal activity progresses rapidly, which means that information about new exploits or malicious IPs should be updated in real time. Automated correlation is done to make sure that any attempt coming from the blacklisted TTP is detected or prevented. Through subsequent scale iterations, temporary use cases bind scanning with near-real-time threat feeds, aligning infiltration tenacity with DevOps adaptability. This synergy fosters continuous adaptation to new infiltration angles.
3. Maximizing the use of Advanced Logging & SIEM Solutions: Storing user logins, system events, and network flows in a Security Information and Event Management platform accelerates the identification of infiltrations. Any sudden increase in traffic, failed login attempts, or changes in data flow are reviewed by staff. Across multiple expansions, transient use blurs infiltration detection into ops, aligning infiltration signals with quick response. This logging approach significantly reduces the time spent on the target system.
4. Conduct Regular Penetration Testing: Ethical hacking periodically identifies areas that scanning might not cover, such as chained exploits or sophisticated social engineering paths. This infiltration lens assists the staff in proactively addressing various vulnerabilities, hence minimizing the risks of data breaches. Across multiple expansions, the temporary usage blends in with the pen test cycles, connecting infiltration resilience with new code or environment alterations. In sum, ongoing pen tests maintain the infiltration vectors as low as is humanly possible.

Notable Data Breaches in History

From state database hacking to large-scale scraping of users’ credentials, numerous data breaches have affected governments and companies globally. Here are four major instances that highlight the nature of infiltration techniques, the scope and the consequences. All emphasize that data breach meaning is not solely technological but affects legal, economic, and societal aspects as well.

1. Aadhaar (2018): The world’s biggest ID system, Aadhaar, was attacked in early 2018, where 1.1 billion Indian citizens’ data, including biometric data, was leaked. The breach leveraged Indane utility company’s unprotected API to perform direct queries on Aadhaar’s central database. It was revealed that some hackers were selling data access for as low as seven dollars through the WhatsApp groups. Even though Indian authorities initially tried to deny some aspects of the situation, the infiltration incident compelled them to seal the API leak.
2. Alibaba’s Taobao Data Scrape (2021): In the period of over eight months, a developer was able to use crawler software to obtain usernames and phone numbers from the Taobao e-commerce site. While infiltration was for personal or marketing purposes and not for black market sales, both the developer and employer faced imprisonment. Alibaba revealed that it spends a lot of money to fight unauthorized scraping as it considers data privacy and brand protection to be of utmost importance. This demonstrated how large-scale harvesting can go unnoticed and avoid standard controls if the site functionalities are not protected.
3. LinkedIn Mega-Leak (2021): In June 2021, the personal information of 700 million LinkedIn users was leaked on the dark web, putting more than 90% of the platform’s registered users at risk. Hackers were able to use the platform’s API to obtain user data, including geographical locations and phone numbers. LinkedIn denied it as a data breach, but rather as a violation of terms of service, but infiltration concerns grew as the criminals obtained enough information for stronger social engineering. Security researchers stated that credentials and personal data could bring compromise in allied accounts if passphrases are reused.
4. Sina Weibo Database Attack (2020): Sina Weibo is a Chinese microblogging site that has more than 600 million registered users, and in March 2020, the company revealed that through infiltration, an attacker was able to steal the personal data of 538 million accounts. The attacker sold phone numbers, real names, and site usernames for $250 on the dark web marketplaces. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in China demanded Weibo to enhance the protection of its data and inform users. While the infiltration mainly relied on information that is publicly available, phone numbers can correspond to reused passwords to facilitate infiltration in other services.

Mitigate Data Breaches with SentinelOne

SentinelOne can use its AI threat detection technology to detect, respond to, and prevent data breaches. It can provide comprehensive security across endpoints, clouds, and identities. Organizations can protect their sensitive information, maintain data integrity, and ensure business continuity.

SentinelOne offers real-time monitoring capabilities, allowing it to analyze system behaviors and file activities, even in the background, to detect suspicious activities. SentinelOne’s Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP), combined with its cloud security posture management and secrets detection capabilities, provides comprehensive end-to-end cloud security. The platform can protect identity-based attack surfaces and also prevent cloud credential leakages.

You can secure multi-cloud and hybrid environments, simplify workflows, and automate security controls. SentinelOne’s patented Storylines™ technology can also reconstruct historical artifacts and events, thus allowing for more in-depth cyber forensics and incident analysis.

You can also use its data security platform to prevent data exfiltration and conduct a mix of agent-based and agentless vulnerability assessments. SentinelOne can also streamline your cloud compliance and ensure adherence to regulatory frameworks such as SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI, DSS, and ISO 27001.

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Conclusion

Data breaches through internal or external threats cause significant financial and reputational damage to organizations, irrespective of their size. By understanding what is data breach and implementing proper scanning, multi-factor authentication, and real-time monitoring, businesses reduce the possibility of infiltration. Integrating short-term usage of the system, high-level correlation logs, and user awareness creates an environment that rapidly identifies an intruder and halts intrusion at an early stage. Also, the formation of strong bonds with vendors who have similar security measures in place makes it almost impossible for infiltration to sneak its way into supply chains.

The possibility of infiltration is rising since criminals are becoming smarter, as they take advantage of zero-day vulnerabilities or endpoints that are not considered critical. This necessitates businesses to choose a robust solution such as SentinelOne Singularity™ that can prevent the compromise of critical data. When coupled with SentinelOne’s artificial intelligence-based threat intelligence, organizations get another advantage, which is the time between the initial breach and containment is significantly reduced, and the infected hosts are isolated before sensitive data is stolen.

Looking for sophisticated, automated data breach identification and remediation solutions?  Get a free demo of the SentinelOne Singularity™ platform and prevent breaches from occurring.