EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): An Implementation and Compliance Guide

CHAPTER 3: COMMON DATA SECURITY FAILURES

Data security failures and cyber breaches can be catastrophic events for any organisation. Small organisations may well be wiped out simply by the nature of the breach and/or the immediate costs of dealing with it, and large corporations can be hit by enormous fines, class-action lawsuits and loss of reputation, all of which can have significant repercussions and inflict significant damage to both the organisation’s reputation and its bottom line.

While the Regulation does not explicitly prohibit data breaches – which would be impossible to enforce – it does assert that organisations should seek ways to secure all personal data against loss and damage.

As the overwhelming majority of data security failures ...