We have long discussed the prevalence of third party organizations in data breaches. The recent Data Breach Outlook 2026 report from leading financial risk advisor Kroll reveals how they account for 69% of individuals affected by a breach, across such sectors as technology, insurance and healthcare.
The impact of just one breach at such an organization can have a substantial ripple effect. A compromise of just one platform does not result in one claim, but dozens or even hundreds “filed by unrelated policyholders who share nothing but a common vendor,” says Katherine Keefe, managing director and global cyber insurance industry lead at Kroll. All this to say, that for every figure attached to a data breach, the total number of individuals affected will likely be greater still.
People caught up in the net of cyber criminals may know this all too well: the initial breach and notification is not the end of the story. Customers of ASOS, an online fashion and cosmetics retailer, could very well learn it themselves in due time. The hackers in this case claim to have such details as names, addresses, contact info and search history – more than enough data to launch convincing phishing or other social engineering schemes. Customers are thus forced to adopt a heightened state of vigilance, not knowing if or how their details were compromised, or when they can expect to see fraud alerts sent to their phones.
Losing control of customers’ data privacy can often lead to loss of trust in the business. Interesting to note is that, despite what some retailers may assume about customer preferences for speed over security, 71% of surveyed European consumers tell Cybersecurity Insiders that the opposite is actually their priority. Strong cybersecurity, even at the expense of ease of checkout, is their preference. Retailers, too: 84% across Europe express a desire for better security initiatives through technology, and 76% are planning to invest in more fraud prevention tools. This includes measures like phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication, quicker access revoking capabilities, and improved monitoring systems.
These necessary measures nevertheless remain incomplete without the organization adopting a proactive attitude toward data encryption. A strong layer of transparent encryption of stored data prevents the bad actors, once they’ve broken through the outer walls, from finding valuable, usable data to steal and sell and leverage for any number of fraudulent schemes.
To safeguard against this is NetLib Security’s mission. As CTO David Stonehill states, for over nearly two decades, the industry has focused on detection, yet breaches are larger, faster and more dangerous than ever, thanks in no small part to AI transforming intrusion and making it easier for cyber criminals to breach systems. Unfortunately, the capability of limiting the impact of a breach has not kept pace. At NetLib Security, our powerful Encryptionizer platform fixes that gap, providing protection for your most critical resource across all environments – physical, virtual and cloud. No additional programming is required, and minimal impact to performance, in order to mitigate for your customers and business the ripple effects of a data breach.