Stress is not only a health concern in today's fast paced digital world but a major risk factor for data security.
📢 55% of people in the UK have had their data lost, stolen or leaked by businesses.
📢 33% found out about this from the news or social media.
📢 25% of people reported they received no support from the organisation who had leaked their information.
How stress increases the risk
Stress can impact decision making and concentration, so when under pressure, we see an increase in the following types of data breaches:🎣clicking on a phishing email without thinking
🔓leaving screens and devices unlocked and unattended
🔁using weak or repeated passwords to save time
🔧misconfiguring systems due to rushing the set up process and exposing data
🧑💻 allowing unauthorised access by staff sharing logins or leaving systems unlocked
and the biggest one we see is:
📤 accidentally sending sensitive information to the wrong person
These seemingly small errors can have big consequences, especially in environments like schools or offices, where large amounts of personal and sensitive data is handled daily.Reporting data breaches
However busy you are, you should still report the data breach to your data protection officer using their advised method. Data Protection Education customers should ideally log the data breach on the breach log in our Knowledge Bank, giving details of any actions taken to mitigate the risk. Then if you have any further questions, log a ticket from the breach log asking your specific question. Our core DPO team can advise on whether the breach should be reported to the ICO or not by assessing the risk for you. For further help and guidance our customers should review the Data Breach best practice area.As an organisation, the steps you take to both improve how you protect people's data and deal with the consequences of a mistake can have a huge impact.
ICO Ripple Effect
The ICO are running a campaign to highlight how important it is to communicate with empathy after a data breach. Information in this article is taken from that campaign along with our own information and experience. Further information can be found 👉 ICO Ripple Effect🫂Data protection is about people!
