After experiencing a breach in data security, the popular Experian made headlines for weeks. Most individuals and companies affiliated with Experian weren’t sure of the news initially, leaving them stuck with the question, “did Experian have a data breach?” Yes! There was an Experian security breach.
Foto de Tima Miroshnichenko en Pexels
The data breach was massive, considering that the hacker exposed the personal information of over 20 million South Africans and thousands of business entities to suspected internet scammers.
Thorough research was carried out on the breach, and according to a report by iAfrikan, the alleged Experian database became available on popular web pages for public view a few days after it was breached.
According to iAfrikan, there are two sets of information from the leaked database. The first set contains about 24 million South Africans’ private data in separate files.
This data is precisely the kind of information the hacker can use to perpetrate identity theft to facilitate financial transactions by impersonating another person.
The second set contains the company’s private information, which can have disasteous effects on the firm
Experian Launches Investigations into the Breach Causes
Amidst this data breach, Experian wasn’t silent. They released a statement assuring the data breach victims that investigations were ongoing to recover lost data and also prevent further dissemination of their customers’ personal details.
Security parastatals in South Africa opened a criminal case to support the investigation. Law enforcement agencies were also brought into the matter.
It was further evident that Experian took cautious steps to curb the damages that could occur to businesses and victims due to this data breach.
The statement that Experian provided made it clear that they notified all data breach victims immediately after the attack occurred to protect themselves from further damages.
Experian also said these scammers were after business entities’ private details basically for assets looting. Fortunately, they couldn’t carry out the loot as Experian notified the affected companies alongside victims.
Any responsible business owner knows the best measures to protect their company and clients from further damages due to data breaches, as this is one of the crucial parts of running a business.
The measures carried out by Experian worked as the number of breached data reduced drastically in 2018. A report released by the Identity Theft Resource Center disclosed that companies in the financial and health sectors that were top victims of the breach managed to curb further damages.
According to Experian Data Breach Resolution, not all breached data have been recovered. Fortunately, the number of recovered data keeps increasing daily.
This Experian trend explains why some companies are taking extra measures to fend off cyber criminals as a breach like The Experian’s could cause massive damage.
We’ve compiled these six key lessons from the Experian data breach to enable people to take cybersecurity more seriously, knowing they might become the next victim.
- Prevention Is the Best Response
Perhaps the major lesson learned from the Experian data breach is to focus more on prevention than on response. Why respond to data breaches when you could have prevented them in the first place?
A survey was carried out on the data security sectors of companies in the United States, and results showed that only about 32 percent of all the companies surveyed had prevented data breaches involving close to a thousand records in years past.
This result shows that most companies don’t take cyber attacks seriously until they’ve experienced them.
- Rate Your Security Plan
Ponemon researchers also surveyed between 2016 to 2018 to discover how adequate some companies’ data security is. Results showed that 45 percent of the 2,000 companies surveyed described their firm’s IT posture as ineffective.
More so, 39 percent of those companies reported that they have no response plan in place if any data breach occurs.
Seventy-six percent of US companies were attacked in the last 12 months, which increased from 55 percent in 2016.
Surprisingly, 66 percent of respondents reported data breaches within that period.
Globally, 69 percent of businesses reported breaches involving losing sensitive data about employees and customers in the previous year.
- Investment in Data Security
Research shows that investment in cybersecurity tends to pay off. Companies that prevented data breaches successfully invested more in data security.
Cybersecurity technologies are updated regularly. As a business manager, it’s your job to look out for these updates and make sure you always have an updated data breach security at all times. Outdated data security software could cause breaches.
- Adequate Training
Most companies tend to focus on training employees in other sectors of the company’s business, like finance, records, and the likes while neglecting data security personnels’ training. Sadly, data security is one of the most critical sectors of a company.
The likelihood of a breach is significantly reduced when trained data security personnel are in charge.
Organizations that pay attention to providing adequate training for their security personnel suffer fewer data breaches than companies that focus on other sectors.
- Prioritizing Cyber Safety
Executive engagement in the data security affairs of an organization also matters a lot. Companies should encourage bringing up matters involving adequate data security during executive board meetings; this way, they can channel more effort towards the security sector.
When C-suites executives are involved in data security matters, the company will experience little or no data breach issues.
- Sharing is Key
When companies share their insights on data security, they tend to help each other indirectly. Sharing gives room for companies to adopt various security measures, strengthening their data security and preventing breaches.
Most times, various companies create forums to share insights on improving cybersecurity, for instance, symposiums and seminars. It’d be best to ensure your company is present at a cybersecurity conference to learn new cyber attack strategies and how best to handle them.
Conclusion
As ironic as it might sound, the Experian data breach incidence has positively impacted data security in companies these days. Through the Experian data breach 2021 resolution, companies can see a clearer picture of the importance of data security. And the best part is, they could also get help on the Experian resolution platform in preventing future data breach issues.