How Do The Biggest Tech Companies Handle Data Breaches?

Hackers attack websites every 39 seconds on average. That means by the time you’re finished reading this article, at least five sites have likely been attacked.

Tech companies are no exception. In the last few years, hackers have perpetrated major data breaches against huge corporations and brands like Marriot, Equifax, Zynga, and many others, affecting billions of users’ accounts.Read more at Tech guide by Dr Prem Jagyasi.

Hackers are clever. They can and will target everything. It’s easy to understand that a data breach can happen to anyone.

But because of the massive amounts of personal user data these companies store, tech companies must be held to higher standards. Here’s a look at how two different names in tech took very different approaches to data breaches.

Yahoo: The Wrong Way

From our vantage point now, it’s easy to forget how powerful Yahoo was. Yahoo dominated in the 1990s. Even today, it still has over 200 million active users.

Yahoo also has the less than stellar record for the largest billion data breach in history. Every single Yahoo account—over 3 billion of them—were hacked.   

The hacks happened over a series of years and exposed usernames, email addresses, date of birth, and phone numbers.

The pattern in each of these attacks was similar. A third-party managed to break into Yahoo’s servers. Yahoo didn’t notice for a while that the breach happened. When it did, it failed to disclose this information to users, and when it did, it significantly downplayed the scope of the attacks.

Eventually, Yahoo agreed to pay $117.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit against the company. It also led to Verizon paying $350 million less (from 5.1 to $4.8 billion) to acquire the company in 2017.

In all, Yahoo hurt itself and damaged its perception in the minds of users who likely didn’t need another reason to head over to Google.

Microsoft: A Better Approach

For over 14 years, 250 million Microsoft customer records were exposed online. Essentially, anybody with an internet connection could stumble on this massive list of accounts.

The data contained email addresses, IP addresses, geographic locations, and descriptions of support customer service claims.

After learning of the vulnerability, Microsoft secured all servers within 24 hours. Besides, Microsoft conducted an investigation and found no malicious use of the data and that most customer PII wasn’t actually leaked. They issued an apology and used the moment to take steps to improve internal security measures.

While this data shouldn’t have been exposed in the first place, this is an example of how companies should act. Rather than concealing the issue, Microsoft worked quickly to resolve while being transparent about it. As a result, it minimized the damage both to itself, and more importantly, its users. 

A Teachable Moment for Companies of All Sizes

This year, we’ve already seen major data breaches on T-Mobile, GE, Estee Lauder, Zoom, and many other firms.

Now’s the time that companies start doubling down on cybersecurity and finding ways to better secure user data against unauthorized intrusion.

This is doubly true for SMEs. Microsoft, Yahoo, and other big names all have the resources to overcome these data breaches eventually. Something like this could be a death blow to small businesses—especially in the current economic climate.

Since most cyber-attacks originate over the internet, both companies and personal users should invest in proven tools like VPNs. VPNs or virtual private networks immensely increase cybersecurity by both anonymizing IP addresses and encrypting internet connection. This makes it more difficult for hackers to track internet activity and leverage it against victims.

In the last year, the leading VPN providers have rolled out enterprise-grade VPNs that businesses of all sizes should look into to better secure local and remote resources.

Finally, there’s never a wrong time to conduct a security audit. Microsoft and Yahoo are only two examples of having security vulnerabilities out in the open for years. While it doesn’t take long for an intruder to inflict serious damage on a network, the longer they have unrestricted access to it, the more they can embed themselves into it and complicate matters even more.

Take the time now to go through all levels of security and check for unauthorized access. Likewise, improve account security through tools like two-factor authentication, password managers, and device management.

Ultimately, cybersecurity is about proactivity. There’s a reason you can expect names like Google and Apple to never show up on this list. That’s because they actively address gaps in their security framework to create novel approaches to security.

You don’t have to have billion-dollar budgets to do the same. Integrate these tools and strategies to prevent a costly data breach from happening to you.