The article I have decided to review was a study conducted across several different companies between 2002 and 2018. This study reflected on how a breach in data may affect a company’s reputation in a negative or positive way. Before diving into the main study of the article I asked myself from a consumer standpoint if a breach in data would stray me from wanting to use or continue using a certain company, who have documented personal information I may have willingly given at a time. My initial thought was, of course I would try and avoid companies that have data breaches versus ones that do not, but the more you may think of all the factors your opinion may change.


The result of the study shows that a company’s familiarity and brand powers show a significant increase after specific data breaches. A lot of the results show that many users may be oblivious to these types of data breaches or may be unattentively aware of what information may at stake. Not to say they are no negative effects from these specific security breaches, however the costs for security measure to prevent them may not be cost efficient for the company to invest into. Smaller lesser-known companies are the ones who may benefit from a data breach the most as it brings attention to the company that many people may been unaware of, whereas if it were a larger more well known to company to have such a breach, there is already a higher expectation for the security of their users.

In conclusion many companies may not have incentives to fully invest into the cybersecurity department especially for newer companies. In my experience, my job recently had a data breach involving unauthorized access to personal health information which involves all your personal information down to your SSN. We were made aware of what could’ve been accessed and ways to look out for fraud activity using our identity. This is scary working for a bigger company as I expected my information as an employee to be safer than not. With me being an employee I am aware of what may happen when sensitive information as such is stored within a company’s system. This is more of a negative impact for my company due to the scale at which we work and provide jobs for the community so there is a higher expectation of its security.