There have been a lot of company data breaches in 2016 in the UK but the three biggest known such breaches are

• Three mobile phone company
• Tesco bank
• Sage business software company

Three Mobile

Three, one of Britain’s largest mobile operators revealed it’s had a major data breach that could put millions of its customers at risk. Hackers accessed Three’s customer upgrade database via using an employee login. They didn’t get access to any financial data but did access  names, phone numbers, addresses and dates of birth of its customers.

Tesco Bank

Tesco Bank which is part of Tesco supermarkets, had to freeze the online accounts of online customers as 20,000 people had money stolen from their accounts.

You can imagine what the customers thought of suddenly finding their bank cards were rejected. Everywhere and then for some that money had disappeared from their accounts.

Tesco Bank, which has over seven million customer accounts, has said it will cover any financial costs of the breach.

Sage

Sage is a business software company and is part of the FTSE-100 index.

Sage said their data breach could have compromised the personal data of 280 businesses that use Sage.

Attitudes to Data Breaches

A recent survey into attitudes towards organisations that have experienced data breaches shows that 84 percent of respondents would reduce or stop using an organisation’s products or services following breaches, and only 16 percent of respondents would continue to use an organisation’s products or services as usual.

Respondents were asked: “If you found out an organisation whose products or services you use had multiple data breaches, which of the following best describes how you would react?”

16 percent – I would continue to use their products or services as usual

27 percent – I would limit my usage of their products or services

37 percent – I would only use their products or services if I had no alternatives

20 percent – I would stop using their products or services completely

Businesses (especially those in the public eye such as FTSE-100 companies) need to understand that if their online security is not up to standard and they are hacked – that has a chilling effect on their customers and it will be hard to repair their reputation.

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