The threat of someone stealing our data is ever-present, but as with so many ever-present threats, we have learned to live with it. We know that our devices know us better than we know ourselves, and yet we continue to interact with them as though they were our trusted friends. We type questions into their search bars about our deepest fears regarding our health, our interpersonal relationships, and the state of the world. Most of the time, nothing happens. Yes, there are corporate overlords out there who know just which products to offer us to make us spend beyond our means, but so far, someone has stolen our identity and wiped out our entire bank account balance in just a few clicks.
Data breaches are not so bad until they happen to you, and when they happen, you are not the only person they affect. The problems a data breach can cause are not easy to fix, and people whose data got stolen must sometimes spend years clearing up misunderstandings and rebuilding their finances. Victims of data theft arising from a workplace data breach have the right to seek compensation from the parties that were legally responsible for protecting their confidential information.
The Bozeman data breach lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP can help you if your data was stolen from your employer’s computer network or if your company is facing lawsuits arising from a breach of your company’s devices; it can also represent you in negotiations with companies that can provide cybersecurity for your company to prevent data breaches.
What is a Data Breach, and Why are They So Disastrous for Places of Business?
A data breach is when cybercriminals unlawfully gain access to a device, a computer network, or an online account and database, and once they have broken into the target piece of hardware or digital asset, they steal confidential information, which they then sell on the dark web to other cybercriminals. The buyers of the stolen data then use it to commit identity theft and other financial crimes. The stolen data may include personally identifying information, such as addresses, birthdates, and Social Security numbers. It might also include financial information such as bank account numbers or credit card numbers; PINs, passwords, and answers to security questions are also prime targets of data theft.
Once the thieves have your data, they can cause havoc. They can open bank accounts and run up debts in your name, and you might not even find out until bill collectors start pursuing the real you for repayment of the debts that the impostors ran up. They can clean out your bank accounts and max out your credit cards. Your financial institutions may or may not refund your money after fraudulent charges, but when they do, it is only after a lot of hassle and stress on your part. Data theft can wreck your credit, making it difficult for you to bounce back from the theft in the short term and the long term.
It is bad enough when data thieves hack into one person’s computer or email account and steal one person’s confidential information, but what happens in a workplace data breach is worse than that. When cybercriminals hack into a company’s computer network, they can steal all the information from its devices that could be used for identity theft. For example, they could steal the credit card numbers and bank account numbers of thousands of customers, since the company keeps this payment information on file to charge recurring payments. They could also steal the Social Security numbers of the employees, since the company keeps these on file for tax purposes. If one hacker guesses one password correctly, then thousands of people can suffer millions of dollars in financial losses. When this happens, the injured parties have the right to sue the company that, through its negligent lack of cybersecurity, failed to prevent the breach of its devices or files and the theft of its stakeholders’ data.
Legal Consequences of Workplace Data Breaches
While federal and state law enforcement agencies have units dedicated to the investigation of cybercrimes such as corporate data breaches, it often takes a long time for law enforcement to catch everyone involved in the data breach, in the rare event that they ever catch every last person. Too many of the people involved in organized cybercrime, whether they are hacking into computer networks, selling stolen data, or using other people’s identifying information without the consent of the true possessor of the identity, are simply strangers on the Internet, concealing their names, locations, and relationships in the shadows of the dark web.
What is clear to everyone, however, is that the company that suffered the data breach was responsible for protecting the data that was stored. It is negligence when the operators of a supermarket leave a puddle of water on the floor from a leaking refrigerator, so that customers might slip and fall and get injured. By the same logic, it is negligence when employers do not implement cybersecurity measures to prevent data breaches of their company’s devices.
How to Protect Your Place of Business From Data Breaches
The biggest companies have cybersecurity personnel as full-time employees. Even if your company is not big enough to hire its own cybersecurity staff, you can engage the services of a cybersecurity firm on a contracting basis. You should have them test your company’s networks for vulnerabilities at least once per year and let them implement the fixes they consider appropriate for the vulnerabilities they find. Beyond this, you should follow best practices for avoiding data breaches. For example, use cloud storage instead of storing sensitive information on physical devices. Require your employees to change their passwords every few months, and require two-factor authentication when employees log into their work email accounts.
Contact HKM Employment Attorneys About Data Breaches
The Bozeman employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP, can give you advice about preventing and coping with data breaches. Contact the employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP in Bozeman, Montana to set up a consultation.
