A total of 3,205 data compromises were reported in the United States in 2023, representing a 72 percent increase compared to the previous record set just two years earlier. While that number was slightly lower in 2024, the worldwide average cost per breach reached $4.88 million, an all-time high. Needless to say, data breaches are an ever-growing issue — with both victim counts and financial damages continuing to trend upward.
Whether it’s the result of an accidental mismanagement of data, a rogue employee, or a coordinated attack from external threat actors, businesses can face devastating financial, legal, and reputational consequences. This is why it’s so important to have a plan before a threat arises — and rapid reporting and professional help can be extremely beneficial.
Understanding Data Breaches: Common Types and Causes
Attackers are increasingly adapting to security features. Now, they rely less on malicious programs and administrative tools built into operating systems and instead use tools such as PowerShell to bypass security systems.
Cybersecurity experts need to understand that attackers increasingly breach branch offices and overseas networks. They can use various methods to navigate into the main network and exploit undisclosed vulnerabilities in public-facing portals, such as password reset features.
A data breach occurs when security measures are circumvented to achieve unauthorized access to confidential information. This can be done in a multitude of ways, but some of the most common methods are as follows:
- Hacking. Perpetrators may use brute-force attacks to gain access to login credentials or exploit security vulnerabilities.
- Social engineering. Sending a phishing email to an employee under the guise of a high-ranking executive may grant cybercriminals access to private information.
- Malware. Often with one of the previous two strategies, scammers may infect a data system with malicious software that allows them to access confidential material.
- Insider attack. This occurs when the bad actor is, or is working with, an individual with permission to access the data that has been compromised.
- Human error. Accidents happen in every realm of human activity, and cybersecurity is no exception. Employees could mishandle or accidentally divulge private information.
Beyond the obvious security risks, data breaches are extremely costly to both the consumers and providers targeted in the attack. The organization whose data was breached receives reputational damage and potential financial losses in lawsuits and regulatory fines.
Consumers often bear the brunt of a data breach. In addition to initial financial and security loss, data breaches publicize private information to numerous cybercriminals. This information may be sold or posted to the internet, opening victims up to further cyberattacks such as email sextortion and online blackmail.
Financial, personal, and health-related data are often targeted in these attacks as this information is highly privileged, and involved parties will go to great lengths to keep it that way. This leads to attacks such as ransomware being so lucrative for cybercriminals.
While these attacks may seem unavoidable, there are steps you can take to improve your cybersecurity. Working with experts like the ones on our team will help you battle back against data burglars and beef up your defense systems to avoid future attacks.
What to Do Immediately After a Data Breach
We’ve discussed just how devastating data breaches can be for both companies and consumers. When such an attack is discovered, the immediate response heavily determines the ultimate outcome. There simply is not enough time to prepare a response when the threat is active. To help you prepare yourself and your business, our experts have compiled a protocol you can call in the event of a data breach:
- Disconnect affected systems. Once a threat actor is in your system, they will likely look to move laterally and collect data. By isolating the impacted devices, servers, or accounts, you can limit their reach. However, do this carefully to avoid deleting any evidence.
- Preserve evidence. Digital evidence such as logs, timestamps, memory data, and malicious files can help reveal the scope of the breach and how it occurred. Preserving this information also supports legal, regulatory, and insurance requirements.
- Notify internal stakeholders. You should alert your IT, security, legal compliance, and executive teams immediately. It’s critical to have clear internal communication to quickly and effectively coordinate your response efforts.
- Report the breach to authorities. Most jurisdictions enforce strict timeframes for reporting data breaches — especially when sensitive data is involved. Notify the appropriate data protection authority to demonstrate compliance and avoid penalties.
- Contact a professional data breach investigation service. While not always a requirement, these experts can help you analyze the attack. They can determine how your system was compromised, what data was accessed, how to contain and eradicate the threat, and what needs to be done to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Why Incident Response Planning and Evidence Preservation Are Important
No matter how well you train your people, and no matter how carefully you safeguard sensitive data and information, a data breach can happen.
If you already have a solid Incident Response Plan in place, there is no need to panic. It will tell you what to do to get things under control again. If you do not already have such a plan, form one now. Contact experienced, certified professionals immediately and let them guide you through the proper steps.
If you have a plan in place, you know that step one is to notify your company’s operations professionals and business stakeholders immediately when a breach occurs. The next step is to follow your company’s Incident Response Plan. The plan will enable you to preserve evidence involved in the breach, stop the leak of data, and return to a normal state of operations as soon as possible.
Security risks and legal requirements triggered by a data breach differ from industry to industry, state to state and country to country. That’s why preparation is vital; a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. A solid Incident Response Plan will take into account your organization’s specific needs and operations as well as legal compliance issues unique to your industry and your location.
A proper Incident Response Plan will spell out exactly who is on the response team, what their roles are, and who to report the data breach to. Lining up the team in advance before you have an incident will ensure you are able to act immediately. Everyone will already know what to do because every second counts.
The team should include security experts, IT managers, marketing leaders to protect your brand’s reputation, lawyers who know the specifics of due diligence and regulatory compliance, business stakeholders, and third-party providers if appropriate.
How Our Data Breach Investigation Services Work
Digital Forensics Corp. is ready to assist you in the case of a data breach by providing services and data breach help to properly investigate the incident. Our years of experience in forensic data analysis have allowed us to develop methods to determine the source of the breach, the scope of its impact, and improvements you can make to limit similar attacks from occurring in the future.
Data Breach Investigation
We begin our forensic data analysis by determining if a true breach has occurred and the potential damage it may cause. This is done by identifying every record in your database that may have been compromised by the attack and providing an extensive report covering the methods used to extract the data.
We will analyze your network activity logs to determine any unusual activity. In cases where malware is utilized, such as ransomware attacks, our experts have the capabilities to conduct malware analysis through metadata extraction, reverse engineering, and running malicious software in a controlled environment. This allows us to analyze the malware’s origin, capabilities, and intended function.
Incident Containment and Eradication
After establishing the cause and possible extent of the attack, Digital Forensics Corp. can help mitigate damages and impede cybercriminals from continuing to steal data. We can stop any unauthorized flow of data in and out of your system to decrease the immediate impact of the breach. We will work in coordination with your IT team to investigate the initial instrument for infiltration.
Our malware analysis enables us to effectively discover and remove malicious software that may be compromising your system to secure your data and prevent further damage. Furthermore, we document everything throughout the removal process to provide you with a detailed report that shows when and how your systems were tampered with.
Data Recovery
Digital Forensics Corp. can also help you regain control of the data compromised in the breach. In the case of ransomware attacks, our experts have the capability to decrypt your locked data and remove it from the hands of the cybercriminals.
We will also scan the internet, including data broker and dark web pages, to find the full extent of the data exposure. We are capable of removing this content and ensuring its deletion from backup storage devices to secure the digital presence of data breach victims and protect against further attacks.
Security Assessment and Prevention
Our services don’t end after discovering the cause of the breach and eliminating the threat of further data theft. We will continue to provide monitoring and help you put systems in place to prevent similar attacks in the future.
Our team can provide regular security assessments to test the strength of your defense methods and locate any potential vulnerabilities. Cybersecurity is an ever-evolving field, so working with a team who can help you stay ahead of the curve will position you to keep your data and the data entrusted to your care safe.
The Importance of Breach Notification and Reporting
Failure to properly identify and document the cause of a data breach and notify the affected parties in a timely manner can result in lawsuits and regulatory litigation. While notification laws vary, it is always important to quickly alert consumers of breaches involving medical, financial, and personally identifiable information.
How to Report a Data Breach
Under the General Data Protection Regulation, any company that experiences a breach of personal data belonging to citizens of the EU must report the incident to authorities and affected parties within 72 hours of discovery.
In Australia, the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires organizations under the Privacy Act 1988 to notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and impacted individuals when breaches could cause serious harm.
In the United States, California led data breach regulation with S.B. 1386, requiring notification to consumers and the state Attorney General. This legislation laid the groundwork for later privacy laws.
Digital Forensics Corp. can help organizations navigate breach notification laws, investigate and document timelines, and comply with regulatory requirements.
Data Breach Help and Minimizing Impact
As attackers adapt their schemes to attack evolving security systems, cybersecurity experts must also remain diligent to avoid falling behind. Cyber defenders need to know where security risks exist, and businesses need to understand how and when to report a data breach.
Weak server security, single-factor authentication on public portals, inadequate threat detection, administrator fatigue, poor log monitoring, and underdeveloped threat-hunting programs all significantly increase the risk of a data breach. Preparation, monitoring, and proactive threat detection help organizations minimize damage and stop attackers before they complete a full attack.
The team at DFC can provide help for data breach victims through the following services:
- Guidance on securing accounts and systems. Our team can help you identify the vulnerable endpoints that were exploited in the attack and provide professional assistance in strengthening your security system.
- Help restoring data and reputation. Our experts can identify the perpetrator and remove their access to your data. We can help recover critical data — including information that was deleted or damaged — to help you resume operations.
- Communication templates for notifying affected parties. With our experience handling data breaches, we can help ensure that you properly report the incident to all parties involved. This includes your internal stakeholders, legal authorities, and your client base.
Benefits of Hiring Digital Forensics Corp. for your Forensic Data Recovery Case
Preserving the evidence is critical. You’ll need to know exactly what happened and when, not to mention how, to prevent a recurrence. Much of the evidence is time-sensitive and must be documented in a forensically sound manner. There are many reasons for forensic data recovery, and law enforcement personnel are by no means the only entities utilizing it. If you’re considering completing a digital investigation on your own — whether for personal or business purposes — you don’t need to handle this alone. Let the experts at Digital Forensics Corp. help you complete your investigation correctly.
A computer-savvy parent might believe they can adequately protect their child from online predators. A home computer guru may think that they would be able to tell if their spouse was cheating. However, that’s not necessarily the case. When someone wants to hide something, they will delete the data. While this data can be recovered, attempting to do so without the proper training and tools can not only make any evidence invalid, but it can also cause the data to be permanently lost. Ensure that all potential evidence is uncovered — including deleted data.
The same is true in a corporate setting. Many businesses opt not to outsource internal investigations, instead utilizing an already existing IT team that is not specifically trained for digital investigations. Even highly educated and trained IT personnel can make the same mistakes as someone completing a private investigation in their own home. Data can be compromised, making it unusable in any legal setting, or even worse, inadvertently deleted. This can make data unrecoverable — even to experts like our technicians here at DFC.
Why Choose Digital Forensics Corp.
Whether you are a consumer or a provider, Digital Forensics Corp. offers services to help you recover from a data breach. Our team assists corporations in discovering the cause of a breach, containing its reach, and preventing future incidents.
We help organizations and individuals develop cybersecurity systems, detect vulnerabilities, and implement monitoring to keep data secure.
Whether you are an organization facing operational disruption or an individual affected by data exposure, DFC delivers comprehensive breach response services. Our experts combine forensic investigation, incident containment, recovery support, and prevention planning to address both immediate and long-term risks.
If you have experienced or been impacted by a data breach, act immediately and contact the data breach consultants at DFC. Proper first response reduces losses and liability. If you need expert data breach investigation, recovery, or prevention guidance, contact our team for confidential assistance.
FAQ
What’s the difference between a data breach and a security incident?
A security incident can be any event that compromises the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of a system and the data that it holds. A data breach is a specific type of security incident that pertains to unauthorized access to sensitive data.
What happens if I don’t report a data breach?
Failure to report a data breach can result in regulatory fines, lawsuits and litigation, and reputational damage that can cause loss of customer trust and reduced business partnership from other companies.
How long do I have to report a data breach?
While timeframes vary between jurisdictions, you typically have up to 72 hours to report a data breach to relevant authorities upon recognition. Failure to do so can result in the penalties explained above, and you will be required to provide an explanation for delays.
Do I have to notify customers if I’m the victim of a data breach?
Yes, you generally have to notify customers if their sensitive data was exposed. Not only is this important for compliance with legal regulations, but failure to disclose data breaches can also increase reputational damage and lost trust exponentially.
Can individuals get help after a data breach?
Yes. Individual victims can receive help from cybersecurity professionals, identity protection services, legal advisors, and consumer protection agencies. If your personal data has been revealed in a breach, contact Digital Forensics Corp. to discuss your options.
How do forensics experts investigate data breaches?
These professionals collect and analyze digital evidence such as system logs, network activity, and malware to determine how the threat actor gained access, what data was impacted, whether the threat is still active, and how to eradicate the attack.
