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Data security is about keeping datadata: information without context, eg a list of students with numbers beside their names is data, when it's made clear that those numbers represent their placing in a 100 metre race, the data becomes information safe. Many individuals, small businesses and major companies rely heavily on their computer systems.
If the data on these computer systems is damaged, lost, or stolen, it can lead to disaster.
Key threats to data security
Data may get:
- lost or damaged during a system crashcrash: When an application or operating system no longer responds. Crashes can be caused by software and hardware. - especially one affecting the hard diskhard disk: a device used to store vast amounts of data, the data is stored on a disk
- corrupted as a result of faulty disks, disk drives, or power failures
- lost by accidentally deleting or overwriting files
- lost or become corrupted by computer virusesvirus: a small program written to cause harm to a computer
- hackedhacked: if a computer has been hacked, someone has gained unauthorised access to it into by unauthorised users and deleted or altered
- destroyed by natural disasters, acts of terrorism, or war
- deleted or altered by employees wishing to make money or take revenge on their employer
Links
On bbc.co.uk
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