Data Breach

Definitions

1. An incident where sensitive, protected, or confidential data is accessed, disclosed, or stolen by an unauthorized party. The event that turns a security team's bad day into a company's bad year and a CISO's career change.

   In plain English: When hackers successfully steal personal information (names, emails, credit cards, passwords) from a company's systems.

2. The average cost of a data breach in 2025 is over $4.5 million (IBM), with costs including detection, notification, legal fees, regulatory fines, and lost business. GDPR fines alone can reach 4% of global annual revenue. The cheapest breach is the one you prevent.

   Example: 'The breach exposed 10 million records. Between the GDPR fine, the class-action settlement, and the forensics team, total cost was $23 million.'

   Source: financial impact

Related Terms

• Ransomware
• Cryptojacking
• Incident Response
• Dumpster Fire
• Data Broker
• Encrypted Messaging
• Opt-Out
• Personal Security
• Privacy