Meaning & use
a data breach
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
an occasion when someone gets into a computer system and steals or sees private information without permission.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a data breach' or 'data breaches'. Often used with 'a' or 'the'.
Patterns
- a data breach of something
- a data breach at a company
- suffer a data breach
The company reported a data breach that affected millions of customers.
After a data breach, users were told to change their passwords.
A data breach at the hospital exposed patients' medical records.
Word forms
| plural | data breaches |
|---|
Common combinations
- major data breach
- The bank suffered a major data breach last year.
- report a data breach
- Companies must report a data breach within 72 hours.
- data breach notification
- She received a data breach notification by email.
- prevent a data breach
- Strong passwords can help prevent a data breach.
Synonyms and how they differ
- security breach
- Broader: it can mean any failure of security, not only involving data.
- leak
- Often used for information that becomes public, sometimes without hacking.
Word family
Commonly confused: a data breach or break?
a data breach vs break
As a noun, 'break' means a rest or a short pause, not a security failure.
Practice
The company announced that a data ______ had exposed customer emails.
Choose one answer.
'Breach' means a failure of security. 'Break' means a rest; 'breech' is a part of a gun or a birth position; 'breaches' is plural and would need 'had' not 'a'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “a data breach”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.