This article was updated on April 3, 2025 and originally published on January 7, 2022.
Most cybersecurity efforts are directed at preventing a data breach. What happens, however, when your organization actually experiences one?
According to the 2025 Cost of a Data Breach report, the average cost of a data leak globally is $4.4 million. That number is just the average; the cost can be much higher depending on the industry, region, and scope of the breach.
Despite preparation, data breaches are still happening daily. In fact, Verizon’s 2025 DBIR estimated 12,195 a year, which averages out to 33 a day! However, when a breach does occur, there are steps your organization can take to respond quickly, communicate effectively, minimize the impact, and prevent another incident. Read on for a best practices guide to get ahead should disaster strike.
Detect Exposed Data Before Attackers Exploit It
Flare continuously monitors dark web marketplaces, illicit Telegram channels, and cybercrime forums for leaked credentials, stealer logs, and sensitive data tied to your organization, alerting your team so you can respond before stolen information is weaponized.
How Does Data Get Leaked?
Data breaches typically result from one of three causes:
- External threat actors
The majority of data breaches come from outside of the organization and common attack methods include:
- Ransomware and other malware attacks
- Infostealer malware and credential theft
- Social engineering attacks such as phishing campaigns
- Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks
- Exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities
- Human error
Mistakes by employees or contractors can expose sensitive information, such as through misconfigured systems, misdirected emails, or improperly secured databases.
- Malicious insiders
Individuals within the organization can deliberately expose or steal data.
The Infostealer Problem
In many cases, one data leak can lead to another. Infostealer malware is a prime example of this sort of domino effect.
Infostealers are a type of malware that infect computers, usually after a social engineering attack convinces a user to click on a malicious link. Once installed, an infostealer collects sensitive information from a device’s browser, including session cookies, system data, and passwords. All that stolen data is compiled into a stealer log, which is then distributed in cybercrime marketplaces on the dark web or using a messaging platform like Telegram.
Stealer logs are used by other threat actors to launch a range of cyber attacks. In fact, according to Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR), stolen credentials were involved in 88% of basic web application attack breaches, making them the most common initial attack vector in an attack.
How Organizations Can Reduce Exposure to Data Leaks
One of the biggest challenges with data breaches is detection time. In many cases, you won’t know when data has been lost or leaked until much later, when stolen data has been used in a future attack. Because threat actors tend not to announce themselves when they sneak into your systems, it’s important to monitor for potentially stolen data before an attack.
The median time between ransomware victim disclosure and detection of related stolen credentials is two days, strongly indicating that stolen data from infostealer malware can be leveraged by threat actors such as ransomware operators.
Automated scanning solutions are a key tool for closing this gap. When the platform detects your organization’s name, employee credentials, domains, IP addresses, or other sensitive information in illicit channels, it sends an alert.
Your team can then act immediately, securing compromised accounts and rotating credentials before threat actors can use the stolen information.
How to Communicate After a Data Breach
If your organization is breached, communicating with affected parties is not just good practice; in many cases, it is required by law.
- Determine Your Legal Requirements
If you are governed by GDPR, HIPAA, or other similar regulations, you will have specific reporting timelines and communication requirements. You may also be required by local laws or regulations to report a breach in a particular way. This often includes reporting to specific agencies or law enforcement groups. State laws in the US often explain what information should be enclosed when communicating with users.
- Notify Affected Individuals
If personal information has been disclosed, you have an obligation to communicate with those individual users, whether they are customers, partners, or employees. The FTC has several recommendations for communication with individuals after a breach:
- Consult with your law enforcement contact about the timing of the notification
- Designate a contact person within your organization for releasing information
- Consider using letters, websites, and toll-free numbers to communicate with people whose information may have been compromised
- Consider offering at least a year of free credit monitoring or other support such as identity theft protection or identity restoration services
- Debrief Internally
Communicating with your own team after a breach is a critical part of preventing future breaches. It’s important to examine the breach itself once the damage has been contained and the source of the breach has been determined. Share findings with your team:
- How the breach happened
- What the response looked like
- Where that response could improve
Communicate with your users about how the breach happened, and reflect on the effectiveness of your response to the breach. This process is essential for improving your security and preventing future breaches. Depending on the root cause, it may also include training staff about social engineering attacks, updating access controls, or revising incident response playbooks.
Recovering from Data Breaches
Data breaches are not a matter of if but when, and the organizations that recover fastest are those that have already prepared: monitoring for exposed data before it is weaponized, maintaining clear communication protocols for affected parties, and treating every incident as an opportunity to strengthen defenses. A strong response does not just contain the damage from a single breach, but it also reduces the likelihood and severity of the next one.
The difference between catching a breach early and dealing with a full-scale incident often comes down to one thing: knowing when and where your data is exposed, so you can act before attackers do.
Detect Exposed Data Before Attackers Exploit It
Flare continuously monitors dark web marketplaces, illicit Telegram channels, and cybercrime forums for leaked credentials, stealer logs, and sensitive data tied to your organization, alerting your team so you can respond before stolen information is weaponized.
