Data Loss vs Data Leak vs Data Breach: Differences & Preventions

Definitions: Data Loss vs Data Leak vs Data Breach

Digital data enhances data save and transfer efficiency meanwhile makes data vulnerable of being lost, leak, or breach. As to cybersecurity, data loss, data leak, and data breach are frequently mentioned but they refer to different data situations. Following content shows data loss vs data leak vs data breach in detail.

What Is Data Loss

Data loss means the sensitive information lost or removed by human error, device or system issues, virus infection, or other reasons. Some malicious software may even hostage your data and ask for a ransom to decrypt the data.

Data loss sometimes happens without any sign; thus, it is necessary to carry out measures to prevent data loss in advance.

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What Is Data Leak

Data leak refers to unintentionally expose sensitive data to someone else who is not authorized to. Internal factors are the main cause of data leak, including lost devices, human errors, bad infrastructure, etc.

Fortunately, enterprises can improve their management and remediate data leaks before cybercriminals discover them.

What Is Data Breach

Similar to data leak, data breach also means unauthorized persons get sensitive information. However, data breach is limited within a specific case, cybercriminal activity. In fact, when data leaks are discovered and exploited by cybercriminals, data leaks are developed into data breach.

Data breach can be triggered by malware and ransomware attacks, spyware, insecure endpoints, and more.

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Differences: Data Loss vs Data Leak vs Data Breach

In this section, I’d like to briefly introduces the differences between data loss and data leak and differences between data leak and data breach separately.

Data Loss vs Data Leak

As to the data status, data loss indicates that the sensitive data is lost or permanently removed while data leak means that the sensitive data is exposed to public.

The causes of the two cases are different as well. Data loss can happen due to diverse reasons ranging from human mistake operations to devices and servers’ issues. On the other hand, data leak is usually the internal causes of an enterprise.

Data Leak vs Data Breach

As we explained above, data leak happens due to the security vulnerabilities while data breach is intentionally initiated by cyberattacks.

Though both cases exposure sensitive data to public, they are slightly different. For data leak, sensitive data is exposed, however, the organization doesn’t know whether the public discover the data and who access it. For data breach, the stolen data usually appears to the dark web, which indicates the public has received the data.

How to Prevent Data Loss

It is necessary to manipulate some strategies to prevent data loss. Here are some suggestions for you:

• Encrypt data: For those sensitive and crucial files, you can encrypt them on your device and before transit. This technique can effectively prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing files.
• Implement antivirus tools: You can periodically scan your data storage devices to remove underlying viruses or malware, which may attack your devices and lead to data loss.
• Run data recovery tools: When data loss happens, run trustworthy data recovery software to get files back. MiniTool Power Data Recovery can recover lost files under diverse situations as long as they are not overwritten.
• Etc.

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How to Prevent Data Leak & Data Breach

You need to carry out different methods to prevent the data leak and data breach cases.

• Periodically check data storages: Old data storage devices are prone to be attacked by viruses and malware. Additionally, ensure the data device is safely preserved.
• Restrict data access authority: Ensure employees have appropriate authorities for their works. For the authority of sensitive data, you need to check in a period to avoid underlying risks and weak points.
• Enhance cybersecurity awareness: Do not click on suspicious links and phishing emails, which may activate viruses or malware and result in data leak or data breach.
• Etc.

Final Words

This post explains data loss vs data leaks vs data breach separately and lists some preventions. For different cases, you need to take the corresponding precautionary. Hope there is some useful information for you.