A data breach may include incidents such as theft or loss of digital media such as computer tapes, hard drives, or laptop computers with unencrypted information, posting such information on the world wide web without proper information security precautions ,transfer of such information to a system which is not completely open but is not appropriately or formally accredited for security, such as unencrypted e-mail, or transfer of such information to the information systems of a possibly hostile agency, such as a competing corporation or a foreign nation, where it may be exposed to more intensive
decryption techniques. In general, data breaches happen due to weaknesses in:
Technology
User behavior
How do data breaches happen?
1) By insider leaker
2) Loss or theft
3) Unintended disclosure
4) Payment card fraud
How to avoid a data breach
1) By updating software
2) Secure all your devices
3) Using encryption
4) Do not open emails from unfamiliar senders
5) Educating employees
DATA BREACH CASES IN INDIA
1) Domino’s India incident
In the month of May, 2021, a huge leak of customer data was experienced by the famous pizza brand namely, Dominos, India. The full details exposed included names, addresses, delivery location, cell numbers and email IDs of 1 million customers who had placed orders on their portal either through mobiles or computer systems. The total number of orders was 18 million
2) Police Exam Database incident
The data from an exam for the recruitment of Police officers in December 2019 in India was hacked which resulted in a leak of sensitive information of all the 50,000 participants. The bio-data of the candidates including their full names, dates of birth, mobile numbers, email IDs, FIR records, and criminal history were all put up for sale. It was identified by a firm named CloudSEK when a sample was shared with them by the hacker.
3) Air India data breach incident
Air India, the national Airline of India experienced a data breach in February 2021 when a record of a total of 4.5 million global customers was hacked when its Data Management Service Provider, namely, SITA PSS was accessed unauthorized. The compromised records revealed Data ranging from years 2011 to 2021.
4) COVID-19 Results Database incident
At the beginning of 2021, a database containing the information of at least 1500 Indian citizens was compromised as a result of an attack on government websites. The hackers had made the data publicly available through downloadable PDF files. It was later found that New Delhi-based agencies were involved in the attack
