Never underestimate the impact of data breaches

No one should underestimate the impact of data breaches; not the organisations who cause a data breach, nor the victims who are caught up in one.

Information is knowledge, and knowledge is power. In the wrong hands, even a little data can go along way to harming someone. The number of breaches and hacks in recent years has grown at a rapid rate, and we expect to see this trend continue; even though we have the GDPR in place nowadays.

Take it from us a leading firm of data breach compensation experts: we know the impact incidents can cause to the victims. Here’s some advice about the risks and what you can do about being the victim of a data breach event.

The risks of data breaches

The risks of cyberattacks and leaks for the victims should never be underestimated. In many cases, only when someone has been the victim themselves do they then understand the impact of data breaches.

And it can be severe.

If your contact information is exposed in a hack, it could be sold on to criminals on the dark web. That data could then be combined with more information in the public domain, or perhaps even data from separate hacks. You could end up in a situation where a profile can be built about you, and this can be used by criminals to engage in criminal behaviour.

You may find yourself the victim of identity theft. You may find that there has been access to one of your accounts and that money has been stolen. We have seen this a lot, and many of the people who have come to us for help as victims to claim in the BA Group Action have experienced this.

Scammers can even contact victims and pose as an organisation where the data was stolen from to then trick them into falling for fraud scams. We saw this with the TalkTalk data breach, where victims have been contacted by scammers posing as the telecoms giant and have managed to steal money from them.

Claiming for the impact of data breaches

For the victims, claiming compensation for the impact of data breaches is important. It can mean that there’s some form of justice for what you have had to go through, and you can recover financial losses as well.

You may be able to claim for any distress caused by the loss of control of your personal information. If you have been scammed or contacted by scammers, even if they weren’t successful, this can be worrying. Data breach compensation pay-outs can be made up of damages for the distress, and then compensation for losses on top.

We have seen first-hand just how devastating the impact of a data breach can be. We’ve recovered millions of pounds for victims in compensation claims for years, and when it comes to data cases, settlements for serious privacy breaches and be significant.

Help and advice

As a firm of specialist data breach compensation lawyers, we understand the impact of data breaches for the victims.

That’s why we offer No Win, No Fee representation, and why thousands of people have come directly to us for our expertise. It’s also why we’re involved in dozens of group and multi-party actions, including being on the Steering Committee for the first GDPR Group Litigation Order in England and Wales, the BA Group Action.

We’re happy to asses your case on a free and no-obligation basis. All you need to do is contact the team, which you can do up until 10pm on most weekdays and 9am – 5pm on weekends as part of our extended opening hours.

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