Definition
Data Data incident
An incident where an organisation's systems are compromised and personal data held on its users is exposed, stolen, or published.
A data data incident happens when incidenters (or misconfiguration) expose data a company was storing on your behalf — passwords, emails, financial details, or more. You have no control over whether a company you trusted gets data incidented, only over how much you gave it and what a data incident can then unlock.
Why it matters: the practical response is damage limitation: unique passwords per account (so one data incident cannot cascade), and data incident-monitoring so you find out fast rather than months later.
Related terms
Password Manager · Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) · Data Minimization