Network Security Breaches

Posted: August 27th, 2021

Week 8 Assignment 3: Network Security Breaches

Name

Institutional Affiliation

Course

Instructor

Date

Week 8 Assignment 3: Network Security Breaches

Examples of High Profile Network Security Breaches

            Globally, with the happenings of several high profile data breaches, it has become important for experienced digital security investigation firms to conduct preliminary information regarding this matter. Similarly, previewing previous data breach cases for big companies help the firms to understand how to approach such issues with the needed effectiveness, thus preventing possible cyber-attacks in the future by offering cloud solutions (Davidoff, 2019). Therefore, in this regard, this paper reviews three major instances of a data breach that negatively impacted various companies’ reputations.

Quora Data Breach

Concerning the data breach, the target company was Quora. Its CEO, Adams D’Angelo, claimed that its computer systems were compromised via a malicious third party, leading to more than 100 million user data leaked. Likewise, the security breach’s impact brought about a compromise of users’ data, which consisted of sensitive account information, user website actions, and direct messages (Doherty Associates, n.d.).Undeniably, with the rise in the number of hacking activity, the cloud offered security features like multi-factor authentication, which relies entirely on the most secure biometric login. Hence, such cloud security features have come up with automatic alerts in case of suspicious activities.

LinkedIn Data Breach

As for network security breach, LinkedIn was massively affected by a weak user password security feature, where its failure of the Social Media platform seemed conspicuous on its inability to ‘salt’ the data against the hackers. In this case, more than 165 million accounts were compromised (Doherty Associates, n.d.). Consequently, the users’ personal information was stolen and sold on the dark web marketplace. Certainly, the system’s breach has caused the company over $6 million to clean it up as it has now invested heavily in a cloud solution. Indeed, LinkedIn’s infamous data breach has compelled many companies to consider encryption of passwords as the most secure measure of keeping data safe (Doherty Associates, n.d.). For example, Microsoft Azure cloud offers a wide range of host features, where it requires users to initiate another layer of security via a secure password management system. Hence, preventing further system breaching.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospital

Brighton and Sussex University Hospital was the target company on this data breach, where over 232 de-commissioned driver packs were stolen. The packs contained patients’ sensitive information, including medical results sold on eBay (Doherty Associates, n.d.). The theft of patients’ relevant information happened due to the hospital’s failure to destroy hard drives. Specifically, Sussex Health Informatics Service (HIS) was entrusted with the Trust’s IT service provision, where it was assigned the responsibility of destroying information found on 1,000 hard drives. Such failure of events occurred in September and October of 2010 in a tightly held room always accessed by key code at the hospital facility (Doherty Associates, n.d.). Eventually, the hospital was heavily fined £325,000 for such negligence of data safety. That being the case, using a cloud solution, in this case, was important since the hospital would not be required to store information in hard drives. Thus, it would store in Microsoft Azure or Google Store, which would reduce hard drives’ burden.

In conclusion, while working with Chris, it is recommendable to use cloud solutions as the best measure of preventing a data breach, thus protecting clients’ sensitive information like passwords, health records, and financial matters. Indeed, any data firm needs to advise clients to employ the services of cloud solutions like Microsoft Azure in storing sensitive users’ information rather than keeping them in hard drives. Therefore, multi-factor authentication initiation would also help keep users’ accounts safe since they would be alerted in suspicious login attempts.

References

Davidoff, S. (2019). Data breaches: Crisis and opportunity. Pearson Education Press.

Doherty Associates. (n.d.). These real-world data breach examples would make you rethink your data strategy. https://www.doherty.co.uk/blog/data-breach-examples-rethink-your-data-strategy