One of the biggest things that happened this year in the UK  was the introduction of the GDPR act in May. This really tightened up the rules for everyone, especially those who work on a digital basis, around what you can and can’t do with people’s data. While it was a bit of a pain for those of us who had to completely reorganize mailing lists and opt-ins and cookie permissions and do audits and all that sort of stuff, it was a really important act. The fall out from a data breach can be catastrophic. Just a few months ago, my bank card was frozen and a new one sent out because of some sort of hacking or security breach by British Airways. I wouldn’t have minded, but I had never bought anything with them or given them any of my details, but I still managed to get caught up in it somehow. That means that they were holding some of my information without my permission. It inconvenienced me for a few days but, thankfully, no great harm was done.

Unfortunately, not all data and security breaches are quite as simple as that. Some are much more major, and not only involve people’s financial details but their identities and their whole lives. In fact, if you look at this infographic published by Best VPN, you’ll see that police forces, governments, and even whole countries have been involved in major data scandals in 2018 – pretty scary, huh?

Infographic created by BestVPN.com

Facebook’s misuse of date affected more than 87 million users, and one by Marriot saw over 500 million people’s data exposed. Those people had their arrival and departure information, names, phone numbers, email addresses, passport numbers, and birthdates. And if that is not bad enough, millions of others also face the potential fallout of their credit card information being breached. 

How do data breaches happen?

It seems like big-time security measures should be enough to keep hackers at bay, but no safety measure is ever going to be completely safe. Breaches of all sizes can happen anytime a hacker, or someone who isn’t supposed to gains access to sensitive files or information. It also happened a lot more than you think. In the UK, organisations have 72 hours from being made aware of a breach to inform the authorities. If they don’t, they can be landed with a whopping fine – up to 10 million euros or 2 per cent of their total global turnover. I imagine most places are being more careful than ever!

Hopefully, as we move into 2019, organisations all across the world will have a better understanding of what can happen if data and personal information is leaked, and not the only the damage it can do to the people involved, but the organisation itself. 

Go over and have a look at the infographic – you can also win a top of the range 50″ 4K Samsung TV provided by Nord VPN by answering a question based on the infographic. 

*I was paid a fee to write this article.