Why Data Breach is Worse than Bumping into a Cabbage Thief?

Stealing from someone…sinful pleasure (before morality or legal system existed). For me, I enjoy stealing some ice cream from my mum’s fridge when I stayed with her until my teenage years and see her running after me with a broom stick.  Or from my grandma’s grocery shop.  Oh! What fun it was to storm down the stairwell and had her dentures falling out too, because she bent over from the upstairs banister to shout at me.  I think the women in my house must have had a difficult time because of my existence.  Bless them XD.

Thank goodness the law didn’t make domestic stealing during childhood illegal and kudos to my ever-forgiving victims who didn’t report me to my grandfather, I managed to qualify as a solicitor.

A year before I qualified in 2010, there was an interesting, engaging and highly successful Tencent game within the Chinese community known as Happy Farm (forerunner of FarmVille).  Highly addictive, it has attracted a staggering 23 million active daily users and new players were capped at 2 million.  Back then when I first heard of it, I honestly do not associate the word “happy” with “farming” at all, as I cannot even imagine myself gardening and never know that farming is a popular activity amongst so many.  So, it turns out that Happy Farm was not about the farming, but more about pilfering! Pilfering produce and even stealing pets from neighbours!

A decade later, Happy Farm has discontinued but internet stealing has morphed into something much more complicated and sophisticated – data breach and data theft.  The rapid changing of the technology landscape enables easy sharing of personal data aiming to personalise contents available to individuals, improving of customer service experience and providing quick AI solutions.  However, great convenience comes with great risks when sensitive or confidential information ends up in the wrong hands.

Common types of data breaches examples include:

• Physical theft – when physical devices or paper form of data are stolen, for example by an employee or any other insider within the entity.

• Loss – physical devices could be lost by for example, an employee enroute to work or through an unintentional leak by an individual who has just forwarded a private and confidential email to a group of different people who should not be privy to the information.

• Hacking, phishing, and malware – where cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities in the devices, network or applications through different method to exfiltrate sensitive data and information.

Depending on the size of the data breach, most forms of data breaches are financially motivated, and the consequences suffered will be different but generally serious. For individuals, data theft for example identity theft usually leads to financial loss and/or the victim becomes unknowingly liable for criminal activities carried out by the perpetrator. As for businesses and organisations, information compromised will lead to costs associated with investigating of the breach, implementation of security measures and compensation of the affected parties.  The breach can severely damage a business or organisational reputation, affecting customer loyalty and business relationships.  The scale and nature of the breach could also mean that the business or the organisation is in breach of the data protection laws of the country they are based, resulting in hefty fines or penalties.

When I compared Happy Farm cabbage stealing and data breach, I can conclude that risk mitigation for the two shares some common grounds:

1. In the face of personal interest(s) or benefit(s), anyone can steal from your farm or your computer.

2. The owner must spend some money to implement robust security measures.

3. Conducting of regular checks will hopefully help keep thieves at bay.

PS: In case you have finished reading the article but still wondering what my mum looks like, private message me and I will send you her most recent picture I nicked from her mobile.