Data breaches blamed on human error – claiming compensation

Many data breaches are blamed on human error, but there could be much more to them. Victims whose information has been misused or exposed can be eligible to claim compensation.

Your Lawyers, as Leading Data Breach Solicitors operating in England and Wales, fight hard to make sure that our clients’ right to justice is achieved. You can contact us to find out if we can help you now with a claim on a No Win, No Fee basis by speaking to our legal team for free, no-obligation legal help here now.

Many data breaches blamed on human error

It can be quite common for a data breach to be blamed on human error when it arises from an incident in which an employee of an organisation has made a mistake or has done something that has resulted in, or contributed to, the exposure or misuse of personal information.

Plenty of research studies indicate that human error remains one of the top contributing causes of information being misused and exposed. This includes cyberattacks where data could be stolen by hackers as a result of a mistake an employee has made. One of the most infamous events that we often use as an example is that of the Equifax cyberattack of 2017 where an employee failed to patch a known security vulnerability which subsequently resulted in information exposure.

Although many data breaches are blamed on human error, there can be much more to these incidents as we will go into more detail below. To find out if you could be eligible to recover compensation, please do not hesitate to contact us for free, no-obligation legal advice here now.

There can be more to human error incidents

When it comes to incidents being squarely blamed on human error, there can be a lot more to them in some cases. For example, is it more of an organisational issue in respect of an employee not having adequate cybersecurity training or data protection knowledge to have prevented the breach? Is it the case that the organisation failed to deploy technology to have prevented the breach from taking place at all?

As a simple example of the latter, the 56 Dean Street Clinic data leak of 2015 is one of the most infamous and serious NHS healthcare data breaches of all time. The issue arose because an employee sent out a mass email to almost 800 people, many of whom were service users for HIV matters. The clinic was supposed to use the “Blind Carbon Copy” (BCC) feature but accidentally used the “Carbon Copy” (CC) feature instead. The result was that all the people who received the email could see each other’s data, which included those suffering from HIV now knowing each other’s personal medical status.

Ultimately, this should never have happened in the first place because the clinic should not have used such an archaic method to send out a mass email, particularly to those with sensitive medical statuses. What they should have done is used readily available mass-mailing software that many organisations use and there would never have been a breach in the first place.

Claim with Leading Data Breach Solicitors – No Win, No Fee

You can claim with us as Leading Data Breach Solicitors on a No Win, No Fee basis if we believe your claim is one that we can succeed with. You could be eligible to recover thousands of pounds, and we are always happy to provide free, no-obligation legal advice – all you need to do is contact our claims team here now.

Data breaches from exploiting weak passwords

Consultant firm data breaches – claim compensation