Analysis of Security Breaches: Hannaford Brothers Incident Report

This report examines the 2007 Hannaford Brothers security breach, focusing on how to avoid such incidents in commercial establishments. It investigates the causes of the breach, including employee negligence and social engineering attacks, and explores the impact on business reputation and sales. The methodology involves secondary data collection and qualitative analysis of peer-reviewed journals, with limitations due to time constraints. The findings highlight the importance of regularly checking data entry points and the collective effort of employees and security protocols to address vulnerabilities. The report concludes that both employee negligence and social engineering are significant factors in data breaches, and recommends further research using primary data to understand network engineers' perspectives on identifying security vulnerabilities. The report provides valuable insights into data security breaches and suggests key strategies for mitigation.

Hannaford Brothers Security breach
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report has successfully investigated the procedures by
which security breaches can be avoided in commercial
establishments. Data is considered as an asset in most of the
organization; hence this report shall be very much useful to
secure the integrity of the organization data such as the
customer information. Secondary data collection and
qualitative analysis shall be considered in this research.
Based on the data collected from secondary sources, it can
be said that both negligences of the employees and social
engineering attacks can lead to security breaches. Lack of
sufficient time was the prime constraint of this research.
Data entry points of the commercial establishments must be
regularly checked to minimize the chances of security
breaches.
INTRODUCTION
A security breach can have a huge impact on both business
reputation and business sales in a contemporary business
environment [1]. The report shall be focusing on the data
security breach, which occurred in Hannaford Brothers in
the year 2007 and breaching activity continued for more
than a year [5].
BACKGROUND
There are numerous reasons behind the occurrence of data
security breaches such as malware, human error and
deployment of unpatched software [5].
SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS RESEARCH
Based on the discussions of Geistfeld (2016), it can be
understood that there are numerous ways by which security
breaches can be avoided in commercial establishments in
terms of limiting the data from the external stakeholders
and vendors of the organization, conduction of the security
awareness training, update the software which is deployed
in the business environments and by the creation of a cyber-
breach response plan which can look after the chances of
any possible security breaches.
Thus, this previous research was very much significant for
the readers of this report to understand the ways by which
security reaches can be minimized in a commercial business
unit. However, this research report shall be considering the
practices which must be considered by the employees of
business organization to minimize human errors which can
also lead to security breaches.
EXPLANATION OF METHODOLOGY
Secondary data collection is considered in this report where
data is collected from peer-reviewed journals. Lack of
sufficient time was the main reason behind the selection of
this data collection technique. Qualitative data analysis is
considered to analyze the data collected on the basis of the
random sampling technique [4]. Lack of numerical data in
the collected secondary data has led the analyst of this
research to deploy quantitative analysis in this research. To
get unbiased data random sampling method was chosen for
this research. Explanatory research was considered as the
design of this report, and the philosophy which was
considered in this research is the interpretivism. The
research design and the philosophy of this research were
selected on the basis of the data collection procedure.
EXPLANATION AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS
The results obtained from the collected data suggests that
the collective effort of both the employees of an
organization and protocols of the security breaches are very
much required to address the future security breaches in
commercial organizations such as Hannaford.
From the results, it can be interpreted that, security
breaches can occur due to stolen credential of the
organizational portal, vulnerabilities coming from the
applications, social engineering attacks, data access issues,
improper network configuration and the user error.
CONCLUSION
Data collected from the secondary sources highlighted that
the security breaches occur due to both negligence of the
employees of the business as well as due to the social
engineering attacks. From a broader perspective, it can be
said that the data entry points of the organization must be
checked on regular intervals as the social engineers make
the most out of these loopholes to compromise a private
network.
RECOMNENDATION
Identifying security vulnerabilities is an unsolved problem
in this research. Primary data can be considered in the same
topic to understand the opinion of the network engineers
who understands the ways by which the security
vulnerabilities of a network are identified by the social
engineers.
REFERENCES
[1] M. Plachkinova, and C. Maurer. Security breach at
target. Journal of Information Systems Education, 29(1),
p.7, 2019
[2] S. Laube, and R. Böhme. The economics of mandatory
security breach reporting to authorities. Journal of
Cybersecurity, 2(1), pp.29-41, 2016
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[3] M.A. Geistfeld. Protecting Confidential Information
Entrusted to Others in Business Transactions: Data
Breaches, Identity Theft, and Tort Liability. DePaul L.
Rev., 66, p.385, 2016
[4] C. Varma. The Presumption of Injury: Giving Data
Breach Victims" A Leg To Stand On," 32 J. Marshall J.
Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 301 (2016). The John Marshall
Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law, 32(4),
p.3, 2016
[5] C. Veiders, "Standards Not Enough in Hannaford Bros.
Data Breach", Supermarket News, 2020. [Online].
Available:
https://www.supermarketnews.com/blog/standards-not-
enough-hannaford-bros-data-breach. [Accessed: 12- Apr-
2020].
APPENDICES
2017 2018 2019 2020
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Human errors
Network
vulnerabilities
Lack of cyber breach
response plan
2