How significant is human error as a cause of privacy breaches? An empirical study and a framework for error management

Privacy‐preserving record linkage

“…In accordance with that, US data also shows that most privacy breaches are due to human error. In a study of 1046 total privacy breach incidents in the US between 2005 and 2008, Liginlal et al (2009) reported that human error caused 67% of the incidents and malicious acts 33%. Finally, it must be kept in mind that from the attacker point of view, a social engineering attack on a human is usually easier than a mathematical attack on an encryption scheme.…”

Interrogating “privacy” in a world brimming with high political entanglements, surveillance, interdependence & interconnections

“…Distractions and Errors can be prime causes for Privacy breaches. Various studies including one from the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) routinely found (especially since 2004), that "human error" is primarily responsible for industry security breaches/privacy breaches and that "management of human error should be of high priority in organizations" [187].…”

Mitigation Strategies for Unintentional Insider Threats on Information Leaks

“…Figure 1 shows several activities caused by human errors. As stated by Liginlal et al [22], the information processing stage constitutes the most cases of human errors.…”

“…Human errors transpire due to the differences in skills, motivations, and knowledge among employees [21]. Human error also arises from work environments that are stressful to the employees, human interface machine issues, and other situational factors [22]. Figure 1 shows several activities caused by human errors.…”