News
Commentary on data breach put domestic abuse victims at risk
September 2023 by Chris Vaughan VP of Technical Account Management, EMEA at Tanium
Today, a data breach put domestic abuse victims at risk after councils, police forces, and hospitals accidentally revealed their locations to alleged abusers.
There is a worrying rise of data breaches involving domestic abuse victims – seven organisations have been reprimanded for this in just over a year. Please see below comment from cybersecurity expert Chris Vaughan, on the topic, and how organisations can combat these life-threatening breaches.
"The number of data breaches that have affected the public sector so far this year has been worrying. These latest incidents involving domestic abuse victims follow on from other serious breaches impacting organisations such as the UK electoral commission and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. As with the case in Northern Ireland, the domestic abuse breaches put people’s safety at risk which is awful to see and provides another reminder that more can be done when it comes to protecting highly sensitive information.
"The ICO explained that the breaches linked to domestic abuse data were caused by several different factors, but the absence of measures like staff training and having strong security procedures in place were reported as common issues. You can never be certain of avoiding data mishaps or cyber attackers stealing data, but by following effective measures the chances of an incident occurring can be dramatically reduced.
"A step that organisations aren’t on top of is having visibility of all the devices that are connected to their networks. From my experience, often 20% or more of devices can’t be seen by IT teams which is a big problem. It only takes one of these unseen devices to not have the latest patches downloaded or for a user to click on a malicious link and then it leaves an open door for sensitive data to be exposed. If organisations were to obtain better visibility of these assets then security issues can be identified and fixed before any sensitive info can be extracted. This is crucial when it comes to keeping sensitive information safe and complying with ICO regulations."
