Cyber Security Breaches Up Since GDPR Introduction

The introduction of the GDPR legislation in May this year made it a legal requirement for firms to publicly report any data breaches that affect consumers’ personal data within 72 hours of them occurring.

Now one law firm has said that it’s seen a ten-fold increase in the number of security breach cases it’s handling since the end of May.

Speaking to Computing, cyber security lawyer at Fieldfisher James Seadon said the firm had seen a “substantial uptick” in its breach advice work since 25 May this year.

He stressed that while many of these cases are technical breaches that are on the smaller side of the scale, there have still been a number of high-profile incidents, most recently that of British Airways.

The airline was hacked and the credit card details of 380,000 of its customers were stolen, which cyber security experts estimate are worth around £20 million on the dark web.

Mr Seadon said that the new GDPR legislation is having “one of its intended effects” in that data breaches are being more widely reported. But he stressed that the new legislation isn’t the only reason we’re seeing more cyber security breaches.

Among the others is “that as our economy becomes more reliant on technology, and criminals become more sophisticated, both accidental and malicious breaches will increase”, he explained.

Working to stress-test incident response procedures, as well as working harder to prevent a breach in the first instance, should be a priority for organisations of all sizes, Mr Seadon added.

If you store personal details for marketing purposes, make sure you are fully GDPR compliant. You can also get help developing your life science sales pipeline from our experts.