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Today, information systems and technology provides a wide set of tools for companies to increase the efficiency of their businesses. Although technology offers many benefits to businesses, it also brings risks as the information systems security breaches. Security breaches and their financial impact is a constant concern of the researchers and practitioners. This paper explores information systems breaches and their financial impacts on the publicly traded companies in different sectors.

After a comprehensive data collection process, data from 192 events are analyzed by employing Event Study Methodology and a comparison of the results between the four highly affected sectors (Consumer Goods, Technology, Financial and Communications) is presented. The abnormal returns on the prices of stocks after the events are calculated with the Market Model. Also, the results of the Market Adjusted Model and Mean Adjusted Model are presented to support the results.

While information systems security breaches have a significant negative impact on the Financials and the Technology sectors for all the event windows in the study ([−5, 0], [−5, 1], [−5, 5], and [−5, 10]), the significant negative impact is observed only on the [−5, 5] and [−5, 10] event windows for the Consumer Goods sector. No significant negative impact is observed in the Communications sector, in fact, the cumulative abnormal returns are positive for this sector.

The contribution of this paper to provide evidence about the financial impacts of the information systems breaches for businesses in different sectors. While there are studies that have previously focused on the information systems breaches and their financial impacts on businesses, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that compares this effect between the four highly impacted sectors. With a relatively larger sample size and broader event windows than the past studies in the literature, statistical evidence is provided to managers to justify their investments in information security and build preventive measures to secure the market value of their firms.

Stock price reactions have often been used to evaluate the cost of data breaches in the current information systems (IS) security literature. To further this line of research, this study examines the impact of data breaches on stock returns, information asymmetry and unsystematic firm risk in the context of COVID-19.

This paper employs an event study methodology and examines data breach events released in public databases, spanning pre- and post-COVID settings. This study investigated 283 data breaches of the US publicly traded firms, and the economic cost was measured by cumulative abnormal returns (CARs), trading volume, bid-ask spread and unsystematic risk.

The authors observe that data breaches during the COVID pandemic make investors react more negatively to data breach announcements, as reflected in the significantly negative difference in CARs between breached firms before COVID and those after COVID. The findings also indicate that, after the disclosure of data breach incidents, information asymmetry is reduced to a lesser extent compared with that in the pre-COVID setting. The authors also find that data breach events lead to an increase in the unsystematic risk of breached companies in the pre-COVID era but no change in the post-COVID era.

This study is the first effort to examine the economic consequences of data breaches by investigating the effects in the form of trading activities and risk measurement in the COVID setting.

The increased use of Information Systems (IS) as a working tool for employees increases the number of accounts and passwords required. Despite being more aware of password entropy, users still often participate in deviant password behaviors, known as “password workarounds” or “shadow security.” These deviant password behaviors can put individuals and organizations at risk, resulting in a data breach. This paper aims to engage IS users and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), focused on designing, developing and empirically validating the Password Workaround Cybersecurity Risk Taxonomy (PaWoCyRiT) – a 2x2 taxonomy constructed by aggregated scores of perceived cybersecurity risks from Password Workarounds (PWWAs) techniques and their usage frequency.

This research study was a developmental design conducted in three phases using qualitative and quantitative methods: (1) A set of 10 PWWAs that were identified from the literature were validated by SMEs along with their perspectives on the PWWAs usage and risk for data breach; (2) A pilot study was conducted to ensure reliability and validity and identify if any measurement issues would have hindered the results and (3) The main study data collection was conducted with a large group of IS users, where also they reported on coworkers' engagement frequencies related to the PWWAs.

The results indicate that statistically significant differences were found between SMEs and IS users in their aggregated perceptions of risks of the PWWAs in causing a data breach, with IS users perceiving higher risks. Engagement patterns varied between the two groups, as well as factors like years of IS experience, gender and job level had statistically significant differences among groups.

The PaWoCyRiT taxonomy that the we have developed and empirically validated is a handy tool for organizational cyber risk officers. The taxonomy provides organizations with a quantifiable means to assess and ultimately mitigate cybersecurity risks.

Passwords have been used for a long time to grant controlled access to classified spaces, electronics, networks and more. However, the dramatic increase in user accounts over the past few decades has exposed the realization that technological measures alone cannot ensure a high level of IS security; this leaves the end-users holding a critical role in protecting their organization and personal information. Thus, the taxonomy that the authors have developed and empirically validated provides broader implications for society, as it assists organizations in all industries with the ability to mitigate the risks of data breaches that can result from PWWAs.

The taxonomy the we have developed and validated, the PaWoCyRiT, provides organizations with insights into password-related risks and behaviors that may lead to data breaches.

This study aims to examine the relative effectiveness of functional and financial remedies in influencing customers' negative coping responses in the event of a data breach. It also uncovers the different mediating roles played by customers' feelings of anger and fear in the process of data breach recovery. This study thus differs from the literature, which has primarily focused on the impact of financial compensation and apologies for service failures in face-to-face environments.

Two scenario-based experiments were conducted to empirically validate the model. The authors received 302 copies of the questionnaire, of which 269 were valid.

This study finds that functional remedies are more effective than financial remedies when sensitive information has been compromised, but there is no significant difference between the effectiveness of the two remedies when nonsensitive information has been compromised. In addition, functional remedies influence negative coping behaviors directly and indirectly; the indirect effect is achieved through the reduction of fear and anger. Contrary to the authors' expectation, financial remedies do not have a direct effect on negative coping behaviors; they can indirectly affect negative coping behaviors by reducing anger but do not affect negative coping behaviors by reducing fear.

This study provides key insights into how to manage customer reactions in the event of a data breach, suggesting the use of carefully designed recovery strategies. Companies must attend to customers' specific emotional responses to manage their negative coping behaviors.

This study extends the limited literature on data breach recovery actions by investigating the different effectiveness of functional and financial remedies in the event of a data breach. It also uncovers how functional and financial recovery strategies affect customers' negative coping behaviors by revealing the different mediating effects of fear and anger.

This study aims to explore the spillover effects of data breaches from a consumer perspective in the e-commerce context. Specifically, we investigate how an online retailer’s data breach affects consumers’ privacy risk perceptions of competing firms, and further how it affects shopping intention for the competitors. We also examine how the privacy risk contagion effect varies depending on the characteristics of competitors and their competitive responses.

We conducted two scenario-based experiments with surveys. To assess the spillover effects and the moderating effects, we employed an analysis of covariance. We also performed bootstrapping-based mediation analyses using the PROCESS macro.

We find evidence for the privacy risk contagion effect and demonstrate that it negatively influences consumers’ shopping intention for a competing firm. We also find that a competitor’s cybersecurity message is effective in avoiding the privacy risk contagion effect and the competitor even benefits from it.

While previous studies have examined the impacts of data breaches on customer perceptions of the breached firm, our study focuses on customer perceptions of the non-breached firms. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to provide empirical evidence for the negative spillover effects of a data breach from a consumer perspective. More importantly, this study empirically demonstrates that the non-breached competitor’s competitive response is effective in preventing unintended negative spillover in the context of the data breach.

Data breaches in the US healthcare sector have more than tripled in the last decade across all states. However, to this day, no established framework ranks all states from most to least at risk for healthcare data breaches. This gap has led to a lack of proper risk identification and understanding of cyber environments at state levels.

Based on the security action cycle, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework, the risk-planning model, and the multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) literature, the paper offers an integrated multicriteria framework for prioritization in cybersecurity to address this lack and other prioritization issues in risk management in the field. The study used historical breach data between 2015 and 2021.

The findings showed that California, Texas, New York, Florida, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, and Georgia are the states most at risk for healthcare data breaches.

The findings highlight each US state faces a different level of healthcare risk. The findings are informative for patients, crucial for privacy officers in understanding the nuances of their risk environment, and important for policy-makers who must grasp the grave disconnect between existing issues and legislative practices. Furthermore, the study suggests an association between positioning state risk and such factors as population and wealth, both avenues for future research.

Theoretically, the paper offers an integrated framework, whose basis in established security models in both academia and industry practice enables utilizing it in various prioritization scenarios in the field of cybersecurity. It further emphasizes the importance of risk identification and brings attention to different healthcare cybersecurity environments among the different US states.

This paper aims to increase understanding of pertinent exogenous and endogenous antecedents that can reduce data privacy breaches.

A cross-sectional survey was used to source participants' perceptions of relevant exogenous and endogenous antecedents developed from the Antecedents-Privacy Concerns-Outcomes (APCO) model and Social Cognitive Theory. A research model was proposed and tested with empirical data collected from 213 participants based in Canada.

The exogenous factors of external privacy training and external privacy self-assessment tool significantly and positively impact the study's endogenous factors of individual privacy awareness, organizational resources allocated to privacy concerns, and group behavior concerning privacy laws. Further, the proximal determinants of data privacy breaches (dependent construct) are negatively influenced by individual privacy awareness, group behavior related to privacy laws, and organizational resources allocated to privacy concerns. The endogenous factors fully mediated the relationships between the exogenous factors and the dependent construct.

This study contributes to the budding data privacy breach literature by highlighting the impacts of personal and environmental factors in the discourse.

The results offer management insights on mitigating data privacy breach incidents arising from employees' actions. Roles of external privacy training and privacy self-assessment tools are signified.

Antecedents of data privacy breaches have been underexplored. This paper is among the first to elucidate the roles of select exogenous and endogenous antecedents encompassing personal and environmental imperatives on data privacy breaches.

This paper aims to identify organizations’ information security issues and to explore dynamic, organizational culture and contingency theories to develop an implementable framework for information security systems in human service organizations (HSOs) based soundly in theory and practice.

The paper includes a critical review of global information security management issues for HSOs and relevant multi-disciplinary organizational theories to address them.

Effective information security management can be particularly challenging to HSO because of their use of volunteer staff in a borderless electronic environment. Organizations’ lack of recognition of the need for staff awareness of information security threats and for training in secure work practices, particularly in terms of maintaining clients’ privacy and confidentiality, is a major issue. The dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation, organizational culture theory and contingency theory were identified as the most suitable theoretical perspectives to address this issue and underpin an effective information security management framework for HSOs.

The theory-based framework presented here has not been tested in practice. Such testing will be carried out in further research.

Currently, there is no framework for information security systems in HSOs. The framework developed here provides a foundation on which HSO can build information security systems specific to their needs.

While the idea of the resilience of information systems security exists, there is a lack of research that conceptualizes, defines and specifies a way to measure it as a dynamic capability. Drawing on relevant cybersecurity and dynamic capabilities literature, this study aims to define Information Systems Security Resilience (ISSR) as a “dynamic capability of a firm to respond to, and recover from, a security attack” and test it as a new construct.

The authors employ a methodology including multiple phases to develop and test this construct of ISSR. The authors first interview senior managers from various organizations to establish the face validity of the construct; then develop and analyze a pilot survey for internal validity and reliability; and finally, design and deploy a field survey to test and externally validate the construct.

The authors conceptualize and define the construct of ISSR as a dynamic capability, develop a scale for its measurement and test it in a pilot and field survey. The construct is valid, and the measurement tool works. It demonstrates that resilience is something that is done, rather than had. As a capability, organizations need to track and measure ISSR, which is what this tool provides the ability to do.

This research contributes to the information systems and cybersecurity literature and offers valuable insights for organizations to manage their security effectively.

A cyberattack is an attempt by cybercriminals as individuals or organizations with unauthorized access using one or more computers and computer systems to steal, expose, change, disable or eliminate information, or to breach computer information systems, computer networks, and computer infrastructures. Cyberattackers gain a benefit from victims, which may be criminal such as stealing data or money, or political or personal such as revenge. In cyberattacks, various targets are possible. Some potential targets for businesses include business and customer financial data, customer lists, trade secrets, and login credentials.

Cyberattackers use a variety of methods to gain access to data, including malware such as viruses, worms, and spyware and phishing methods, man-in-the-middle attacks, denial-of-service attacks, SQL injection, zero-day exploit, and DNS tunneling.

Related to cyberattack, the term cyberwarfare is gaining popularity nowadays. Cyberwarfare is the use of cyberattacks by a state or an organization to cause harm as in warfare against another state's or organization's computer information systems, networks, and infrastructures.

Military, civil, and ideological motivations, or hacktivism can be used to launch a cyberwarfare. For these reasons, cyberwarfare may be used to conduct espionage, sabotage, propaganda, and economic disruption.

Considering highly digitalized business processes such as e-mails, digital banking, online conference, and digital manufacturing methods, damage of cyberwarfare to businesses and countries are unavoidable. As a result, developing strategies for defending against cyberattacks and cyberwarfare is critical for businesses. The concepts of cyberattack and cyberwarfare, as well as business strategies to be protected against them will be discussed in this chapter.