Outdated IT infrastructure – no excuse when it comes to data breach claims

Outdated IT infrastructure is a major cause for people suffering when their personal information is misused or exposed, and there is no excuse. Victims can be eligible to claim compensation on a No Win, No Fee basis, and we can help.

Your Lawyers – as leading Data Leak Lawyers – represent thousands of people for claims and have won over £1m in data breach damages for mainly individual clients to date. Our experience in this complex and niche area of law speaks for itself, so when we tell you that outdated IT infrastructure is no excuse, you can trust in our advice.

If you have suffered due to the loss of control of your personal information, you could be eligible to launch a legal case with us now.

The dangers of outdated infrastructure

Outdated IT infrastructure can arise in a variety of ways. It can simply come down to a lack of expertise within an organisation that can leave systems or even employees vulnerable to risks, and employers need to ensure that their employees are compliant. Remember: if an employee makes a mistake, the negligence can fall onto the employer, so a victim of a data breach can still be eligible to pursue a claim for data breach compensation.

Even simple things like keeping apps and plugins updated as frequently as possible is absolutely essential. Any organisation is only as secure as its weakest link, and cybercriminals do look to exploit weaknesses in things like apps and plugins. This is why the developers frequently issue updates for them to try to keep them secure.

A big question then is this: are employees aware of these risks and the need to keep things updated? This kind of issue was highlighted when we were in the immediate throngs of the coronavirus pandemic and employees were quickly rushed into working from home. Using their own equipment and networks that may not have been as secure as the ones in the office risked leaving some organisations vulnerable when connecting to systems and servers from home.

Taking aside the risks that can fall onto employees, the organisations that they work for must always ensure that they are fully up-to-date and deploy the best cybersecurity that they can. This means employing specialists either within, or at least externally (or both), to enforce this. There must be sufficient knowledge within an organisation to know how to deal with risks.

It is easy to see the risk when outdated IT infrastructure is used. Two big examples happened in 2017: the first was the WannaCry incident that caused serious damage to the NHS when hackers were targeting softer systems; and the second was the Equifax cyberattack of 2017 that we represent clients for, the cause of which arose from a known security patch not being updated by the credit-referencing company.

No excuse for outdated IT infrastructure

It is not a reasonable excuse or a good defence to blame outdated IT infrastructure as the reasoning for a data breach. If this happens, victims whose personal information has been misused or exposed as a consequence could be entitled to claim data breach compensation.

We would usually agree to take forward a case with this issue at the centre of it on a No Win, No Fee basis. We do this when we are confident enough that there are reasonable prospects of succeeding with the claim.

Free, no-obligation advice

You can speak to the team today and receive free, no-obligation advice about pursuing a claim for data breach compensation here now.

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