Why Do Companies Fail To Stop Data Breaches?

Before we begin stating the most prevalent and common cause for Data Breaches, let’s first see how bad it is.

2020 was a Disaster in every possible way. Where only a few industries benefited, whole Economies came on their knees. This pandemic gave a terrifying push to Cyber Attacks worldwide. Hackers have become significantly more active and are looking to target the largest of organizations and most influential people.

In 2020 alone, 20 Billion Records were Exposed which is a 67% Increase from 2019’s 12 Billion. Also, this is a whopping 24-Times increase from 2017 (826 million).

Hackers are now targeting Tech-Giants some of which have made their bread and butter offering and promising security to common people and yet they weren’t able to safeguard themselves.

Some of the most common data breaches that made headlines in 2020 are:

1. CAM4 – 88 Billion records
2. Advanced Info Service (AIS) – 3 Billion records
3. Keepnet Labs – 5 Billion records
4. BlueKai – Billions of records
5. Whisper – 900 Million records
6. Sina Weibo – 538 Million records
7. Estée Lauder – 440 Million records
8. Broadvoice – 350 Million records
9. Wattpad – 268 million records
10. Microsoft – 250 million records

I am sure, if you have been using the Internet for more than a couple of years, you would have heard most of these names as these are a few of the highly popular Tech-Companies, and yet they weren’t able to safeguard their user’s PI data from hackers.

Why does it happen though? Why do companies keep falling prey to these attacks? What is the most common cause of Data Breaches? Let’s talk about it in detail.

Why do Companies Fail to Stop Data Breaches?

Despite a whopping $120 Billion investment every year in IT Security, Big organizations are failing to stop these attacks. What is it they are missing? Are they missing the infrastructure? No, are they missing the Man Power or the Right Technicians? NO. What is the most common cause of Data Breaches? –

Let’s look at some popular attacks to understand the problem:

1. Garmin Security Breach:

On the 23^rd of July, Cyber Criminals attacked Garmin with a Ransomware attack. Garmin’s online services were interrupted, including their website, customer support, and pretty much everything. How did it happen though?

Now the people who know how Ransomware works also know that there has to be an employee who didn’t care much about the links that he/she clicked upon. The person who, at first, clicked on the fake link quickly started the outbreak because all the computers are linked.

Let’s look at another case:

2. The Attack that Broke Twitter

You may think that this was some sophisticated movie-like attack but it wasn’t. It was Spear Phishing. A few employees of Twitter got tricked into giving up their passwords by a few random calls from the people who pretended to be from their IT department. These people tricked a few employees to gain their Username and Password and it later led to the disaster as we know it.

3. The Popular Credential Stuffing attacks that brought various companies to their Knees

People frequently use their official email addresses to log in to various websites that they don’t even trust. Now, because the email accounts don’t directly relate to them and they don’t care much about its security, they tend to put either repetitive or weak passwords. In a lot of Data Breaches, these ID Passwords have helped hackers to gain access to the “EMPLOYEE-ONLY” data of various companies which later leads to the Data Breaches that cost companies millions and reputation-loss.

Now, did you see the reason why companies fail to Stop Data Breaches despite spending hundreds of Billions of Dollars on Cyber Security? THE EMPLOYEES.

Also Read: McAfee Mobile Security

What should companies try and do to Minimize this trend of Data Breaches?

I am not saying that companies don’t know how to work. It is just one of those cases where the companies can’t seem to find the nose in front of their face and are spending Millions of Dollars to create one. The companies are working perfectly fine with all the security infrastructure and technicians, the point where they are lacking is Employee Training.

Inadequate and inefficient employee training is the most common cause of Data Breaches. If employees at all levels and not just IT Personnel know the value of their position and how their small mistake can cost the company every ounce of respect it has earned, they would be more careful. More than anything, they should be taught and reminded what they aren’t supposed to be doing with their official information. A little extra effort from the employees’ end can significantly minimize the chances of data breaches.

Though we can’t help protect the data lost on these organizations’ end, we can ensure that we don’t fall prey to such attacks. Hence, we should always use Antivirus software to protect ourselves from Ransomware and similar attacks. Though there are a lot of Antivirus Solutions available in the market today, I suggest using Systweak Antivirus.

Systweak Antivirus:

Systweak Antivirus is one of the most popular Antivirus solutions available for Windows in the market. Systweak Antivirus comes with excellent security features to safeguard your data and offer protection from Malware. Some of the most highlighted features of Systweak Antivirus are:

Click Here to Download Systweak Antivirus

• Malware Protection: Systweak Antivirus, as its main functioning, provides second-to-none malware protection and is capable of detecting and eliminating the most recent malware.
• Real-Time: Systweak Antivirus works in Real-Time to detect and eliminate malware as soon as it is downloaded to the PC before it can do much harm to the PC.
• Software Updater: Systweak Antivirus comes equipped with Automatic Software Updater because the outdated software often provides a backdoor to hackers and works as a loophole in computer

With these and a lot of other features, Systweak Antivirus is one of the Best Antivirus for Windows in 2021. Visit Systweak Antivirus for more information.

Note: However, if you are looking for a good Mac Antivirus, check out this blog on the best Antivirus for Mac.

Next Readings:

Kaspersky Antivirus, Total Security, and Kaspersky Internet Security 2021

Boost Security With Microsoft Defender on Windows PC