In cybersecurity, a security breach refers to a successful attempt by an attacker to gain unauthorized access to an organization's computer systems. Outages can include stealing sensitive data, corrupting or sabotaging data or IT systems, or actions aimed at falsifying websites or damaging reputations.
Security breaches and the law
Security breaches have legal significance. Laws in some countries may expose organizations to fines or other penalties if they are violated and certain sensitive data is affected. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) defines a personal data breach as "a breach of security that results in accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure or access to personally identifiable information (PII)". The U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) defines a security breach as “an unauthorized use or disclosure…” that compromises the security or privacy of protected health information.
Security breach vs data breach
A security breach is a general term that refers to any breach of corporate systems. A data breach is a specific event in which data is maliciously accessed, stolen or destroyed.
Security breach vs security incident
A security event, such as a security breach, represents an attacker's attempt to access or damage corporate systems. The difference is that most security incidents do not result in an actual breach.
For example, a brute-force attack against a protected system attempting to guess multiple usernames and passwords is a security event, but cannot be identified as a breach unless the attacker manages to guess a password.
A security incident can qualify as a security breach if it allows an attacker to access protected systems. If the attacker gained access to sensitive data, it is a data breach.
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