The potentially huge impact of simple data breaches

Even simple data breaches can cause a significant impact on those affected and can involve a large number of people, with the Virgin Media data leak being a case in point.

Too often we see companies dismiss data breaches, leaks and hacks as small things, where they will make comments about the fact that “no financial information” was affected, for example. Even if this is the case, this does not mean that the impact cannot be severe for those who are affected, which is why we pursue No Win, No Fee compensation cases for those who have lost control over their information through no fault of their own.

You can find out if you are still in time to join the Virgin Media compensation action by completing a few forms here now.

Virgin Media: example of the impact of simple data breaches

The Virgin Media incident was an example of the potential extent of simple data breaches and how badly they can affect those who are involved in them. Whilst people can often dismiss simple data breaches, what we focus on is what the impact could still be on the victim, no matter how big or small, and no matter how much or little information is involved.

In the Virgin Media data breach, it was a case of a marketing database being left exposed due to a simple error which meant that it was incorrectly configured. This one simple error resulted in the personal information of 900,000 people being exposed online for a significant period of time, which was between April 2019 to February 2020. This means that the information was left exposed for a period of 10 months and at least one unknown third party is understood to have accessed the information.

As such, as far as simple data breaches go, this appears to be one small error that has had a massive impact and affected almost a million people. The information affected can be enough for cybercriminals to target people for fraud and theft. For some of them, there was also sensitive contract information exposed in the data breach. Whilst it can be easy to look at the human error elements, we often look at the systemic and procedural elements of a data breach and the fact that this incident should never have happened in the first place, and should have been spotted much sooner than it was as well. In fact, it took a third-party security researcher to identify that the data breach had occurred in the first place.

The right to claim compensation using the GDPR

The right to claim compensation using the GDPR is there for victims to use when they have lost control over their personal information and have suffered from some form of distress or loss. In most cases, people claim for distress which stems from the feelings of worry, anxiety, anger, and concern about what might happen when we lose control over the information that we are entitled to have control over.

There are good reasons why the GDPR affords us control over our personal information, as we do not want everybody to know absolutely everything about us. Further, information has value, and it can be weaponised by criminals to be used against us to commit fraud and theft. This is why the right to claim compensation using the GDPR is such an important and fundamental legal principle, and why we uphold it in fighting for the rights of those who seek damages for what has happened to them.

Find out if you are still in time to claim

Find out if you are still in time to join the Virgin Media Data Leak Group Action, as we are a considerable number of years on from when the incident was first discovered. There are often multiple timeframes to join actions of this nature, and you do not want to miss them as it could cost you thousands of pounds in unclaimed damages.

Find out if you can join our No Win, No Fee compensation action by completing a few simple forms here now.

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