In a world so full of data, it’s amazing any of it can be kept secret, but it’s what we try to do every single day – to avoid our personal or business data being stolen, we hide it behind firewalls and digital defences, hoping that will be enough. But what happens when it isn’t? When your security systems fail, what can happen to your precious data?
Hacking
Let’s start with the worst case scenario – hacking. If you or your business is the target of a malicious attack, your security system may have to stand up to a hacker. Now, hackers come in all shapes and sizes, as we will explain in our next blog, but for the most part malicious attacks will be done by black hat hackers. These people are experts at breaking through digital defences and stealing data, or else planting malicious software to undermine your system further. If this happens, you might become the victim of identity theft, have money stolen or your data sold on the black market.
Data Loss
The worst scenario for many business users is actually data loss, rather than identity theft. Identity theft can be dealt with, but businesses who don’t back up their data (and believe me, there are still a lot), losing their data is actually the worst possible thing that could happen. Without that data, their business could grind to a halt or stop completely, leaving them in ruins. Of course this sounds very fanciful, but it is the sort of thing that happens every single day.
System Failure
The third option is that there is no hacker, no data theft and no person behind anything. Instead, your systems could be infiltrated by a simple virus. A simple malware program is easy to contract, especially if you aren’t too careful about where you go online. Again, malware comes in all sorts of forms, from worms that eat all of your files to ransomware that locks your files away and demands money. Malware is very crafty and good at remaining hidden, so users might not even know they have a virus until the damage is done. When there is a chink in your digital armour, you are letting a swarm of malware through to your systems to wreak havoc, and eventually start causing system failures – just like a virus in a human body.
Of course, these are just the worst case scenarios. There are many consequences of security failure much less dramatic than these, all suffered every day by individuals and business owners. To avoid falling prey to any of these, make sure your digital (and paper) data is properly protected at all times. For more information, get in touch with the Greenaway team today.
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