Big Breaches: Cybersecurity Lessons for Everyone

© Neil Daswani and Moudy Elbayadi 2021

N. Daswani, M. ElbayadiBig Breacheshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6655-7_1

1. The Root Causes of Data Breaches

Neil Daswani¹   and Moudy Elbayadi²

(1)

Pleasanton, CA, USA

(2)

Carlsbad, CA, USA

 

What are the root causes that have allowed attackers to break into so many organizations? This chapter mainly focuses on six technical root causes. Before delving into those, we first discuss three of the “meta-level” root causes: failure to prioritize security, failure to invest in security, and failure to execute on security initiatives. For anything important in life or business, one may argue that these three types of failures (to prioritize, invest, and execute) can apply to almost anything, but we will cover some ...