3. Theft of data

Data / Information is often the most valuable commodity any business has.

The cost of creating data again from scratch can far outweigh the cost of any hardware or programs lost. Loss of data can have various consequences, some of which can be seen below.

• Can stop the business running
• Can damage the reputation of the company
• Data containing personal information must be declared
• Losing customers
• Losing sales

Data can be stolen either by physical theft of hardware, or through unauthorised access to the system e.g. hacking.

Malware can also result in lost data. For example, the malware may encrypt all the data and then insist on money to reveal the decoding key.