In less than a decade, the Internet has grown explosively which has drawn attention to billions of users and increased the number of online activities to an unprecedented rate. As a consequence, this led the whole world to a new digital age, where the majority of people nowadays are reliant on the Internet and technology for their needs. For Instance: E-mail has rapidly replaced outdated hand-written letters, phone calls are conducted through wireless devices, news is informed to the world through websites or social rather than paper like before and people can now connect and the world via social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and so on (Balan et al. 2017; Uma et al. 2013).
Additionally, facing in front of such high demand, businesses also offer some online activities such as window shopping, online transactions, and many more. Going along with the advancement of technologies, many people believe cyber-security is fortified to stop or prevent cyber-attacks. Nevertheless, according to the big data analysis, the number of cyber-attacks within the past 10 years shows no sign of decreasing but increasing instead (Balan et al.2017). As a consequence of these cyber-attacks, data from both companies and customers are breached, which has severe impact on organizations and users. According to the Ponemon institute, popular organizations such as Google, Snapchat, Facebook, Microsoft, Target, and so on usually have high expectations to protect their customers’ private data such as credit card details, personal details have more loss from a data breach (Pierson 2009). The reason is due to a lack of awareness and knowledge from both consumers and organizations. This research, therefore, will discuss data breaches, cases of data breaches, the importance of cybersecurity, the trust issue with different sites, how much information should users share on the internet, and some methods to prevent data breaches (Uma et al.2013; Pierson 2009).
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The Internet brings to society many advantages; however, it is also one of the major platforms for hackers to perform cyber-attacks and cause damage to systems as well as data. The term cyber-attack is described as the exploitation of cyber-space for illicit purposes such as accessing unauthorized data, deactivating networks, stealing and spreading out private data, and so on (Balan et al. 2017). The cyber-space refers to the “virtual computer world”, which is a medium for people to interact, and online communication, is the outcome of the Internet. It is critical and important to control the infrastructure of the cyber-space because it is fundamental to cybersecurity and other private activities (Bussell, J n.d; Clark et al. 2010).
Through cyber-space, hackers can utilize flaws and vulnerabilities and therefore perform attacks on several important industries and services such as banking, hospitals, education or even the military (Balan et al. 2017). Over the past decade, some cyber incidents caused massive data breaches and money. For example, a typical case of data breach occurred at Target, one of the biggest U.S. retail chains. For example, the typical enormous data breach occurred with Target (one of the biggest U.S. retail chains) during November and December 2013 (Hardy, M 2014). Just right before the Thanksgiving event of 2013, malicious software was believed to installed on the payment system of Targets. When shoppers were shopping for the Christmas season, the malicious software was designed to steal their personal information such as credit card numbers, names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, and so on. The hacker then captured all the data and stored it on the anonymous server. As a consequence, Target confirmed that approximately 40 million credit and debit cards had been stolen. And this data breach cost Target more than $61 million. If the breaches were found out earlier, the costs and damage would not be this severe. As a result, this tragedy marked a significant event in the history of cyber incidents and also the beginning of an increase in cybersecurity practices and the awareness of both businesses and individuals (Hardy, M 2014). And again, this proved nothing is safe on the Internet.
Furthermore, the Internet is a vast virtual world that stores enormous data and all kinds of information. This includes public information which can be accessed by the general public, and private or unauthorized information that only allows particular individuals or organizations to access. The concept of data privacy, therefore, is induced, it is a branch of information technology (IT) that associates what data can be shared with third parties and the legal rights associated with it (Von et al. 2013). If there is any personal or private data is being hosted by the Internet, privacy is needed. Hence, the question being raised is who can we trust enough to provide our personal information, and how much should we share with that particular person or organization? Internet privacy is a concerned when it comes to all the websites that require users to provide their personal information on the Internet, whether it is compulsory or optional to give out personal data. There are also some ethical issues associated with third parties and users that have raised controversy and conflicts over Internet users. One of the primary conflicts was whether third parties were allowed to store or read personal information such as profiles, documents, pictures, emails, biographies, etc. without any consent from the users (Balan et al.2017; Von et al. 2013).
Hence, Facebook will be used as a case study in this scenario, as Facebook is believed not to have many ways to constrict third parties such as advertisers, other developers of games, etc. from approaching personal information for their purpose. Social media such as Facebook have turned into a place where the barrier between public and private is sfading(Waldman, 2016). Facebook has billions of users around the world, if any data breach happens again, the cost will be unimaginable to both the organization and all the users.
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