ENG215_Prewriting & Research Assignment1

Running head: DATA BREACH 1

Assignment

Student Name

Course

Prof Name

Date

DATA BREACH 2

Topic, Position, Audience, and Goal

Topic

The second half of the 2010s was characterized by high profile incidents of data breaches

in the United Sates.

Position

Companies across different industries faced worrying threats of cyber insecurity. This

paper discusses the current state of the data breach and the preventive measures for data

insecurity.

Audience

My target audience is business executives, who I would persuade to establish network

protection programs. Business executives are aware of the importance of maintaining the safety

of critical data and the impact network breaches have on their systems. Usually, cyber criminals

conduct data breaches in three main steps, namely research, contact, and attack. The research

stage is where they identify targets by looking for vulnerabilities in their computer or network

systems. Attackers target sensitive information about customers and operations. Examples of

such information are mails, physical addresses, social security numbers, bank account details,

and phone numbers, in addition to information such as clinical details, employee reward

information, and information on confidential organizational activities. It is clear that the current

state of cybersecurity in the US is deteriorating, making personal data of US citizens critically

insecure. Despite the critical nature of cyber threats, leadership values are core to devising

means of protecting data as a way of ensuring organizational credibility. The current state of a

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data breach in the United States is alarming, and drastic solutions to internet system

vulnerabilities need to be implemented.

Goal

Techniques ending cyber threats must address mitigation, prevention, and recovery.

Supporting Points

1. Several multinational companies and global organizations experienced publicized

challenges relating to malware, hacking, spyware, and phishing, among other crimes.

2. Data breach immensely affects the privacy and rights of customers, employees, and

governments.

3. Data breach immensely affect business strategies of organizations owing to the problems

that generally emanate massive cases of cyber insecurity.

Research Organizer

Top 3 Sources with Summaries

Cadwalladr, C., & Graham-Harrison, E. (2018). Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles

harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach. The guardian, 17, 22.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-

election

Some shocking cyber-crimes against the leading global corporations have occurred in the

recent past. An example of one of the most ethnically and politically destructive network system

breaches within the past decade is the Cambridge Analytica, which is extensively described in

Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, (2018). This article describes the data breach on Facebook’s

system that is linked to publicized irregularities in the U.S presidential election and the Brexit

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referendum. The motive of data breach varies among cyber criminals and across industries.

Preventing and detecting data leaks require constant effort and investment from organizations. It

would be recommended that the directions of data leak detection as a cloud service and deep

learning‐based anomaly detection for insider threats are particularly promising.

Cheng, L., Liu, F., & Yao, D. (2017). Enterprise data breach: causes, challenges, prevention, and

future directions. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 7(5),

e1211 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/widm.1211

It is imperative for organizations and governments to continually remain committed to

observing data protection and investing in new methods of data protection. In their view, data

protection should focus on advanced persistent threats, insider activities, and computer and

network systems use policies. Federal, state, and industry-specific regulations are also essential

in preventing a data breach. Internal cybersecurity advocacy within organizations for the culture

of system protection to be built in all departments and among employees.

Joslin, J. M. (2019). The Path to Standing: Asserting the Inherent Injury of the Data Breach.

Utah L. Rev., 735. https://utah-law-review.scholasticahq.com/article/9521-the-path-to-standing-

asserting-the-inherent-injury-of-the-data-breach

Measures to phase out data breach in governmental and corporate sectors are mostly

unsuccessful. Indeed, the US government grapples with phasing out leaking of sensitive and

classified information. For example, the recruitment of former agents by cybercrime facets has

led to threats to the systems of the United States security agency’s data security technologies.

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Based on these examples, it is clear that the current state of cybersecurity in the US is

deteriorating, making personal data of US citizens critically insecure. Despite the critical nature

of cyber threats, leadership values are core to protect data as a way of ensuring organizational

credibility.

3 Additional Sources (No Summary Required)

Manworren, N., Letwat, J., & Daily, O. (2016). Why you should care about the Target data

breach. Business Horizons, 59(3), 257-266. https://kundoc.com/pdf-why-you-should-care-about-

the-target-data-breach-.html

Romanosky, S., Hoffman, D., & Acquisti, A. (2014). Empirical analysis of data breach litigation.

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 11(1), 74-104.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jels.12035

Selfkey Network (2020) retrieved https://selfkey.org/data-breaches-in-2019/