Question

What kinds of threat related to data theft does an organisation face?

Answer 1

Following are the common data thefts faced by an organisation:

1. Intellectual Property theft: Theft of Intellectual properties like copyrights, trademarks, patents, secret trade plans etc. is carried out to lower down the economic value of an organisation. For e.g., selling of pirated movies or uploading of movies on internet without the consent of the owner is intellectual property theft.
   
2. Information Extortion: It is carried out for the purpose of getting payments in exchange of information. For e.g., a ransomware can encrypt computer of a user and ask ransom in exchange of the decryption key.
   
3. Insider Threat: Employees working in an organisation know a lot of critical details of the organisation. For some monetary benefits or some person reasons like fight with boss etc., an employee can release this critical information to outsiders, who in turn, can harm the economic interests of the organisation.
   
4. Customer Data Stealing: Almost all of the organisations keep data of their customers. It can range from a person's personal data like name, date of birth, address etc. to critical data like credit card information, bank account details etc. Target's breach is famous case wherein credit card details of millions of its customers were stolen by the cyber criminals.
   
5. Business Identity Theft: Identity theft means impersonating someone else. Here, attackers can impersonate a business and gain access to its critical information to damage a business. For e.g., cyber criminals can transfer credit from their accounts to elsewhere, or use business resources to hide their crime and ultimately, the business comes under scanner.