A server administrator is alerted that a server has been stolen from a company's remote branch office. The server, which stored sensitive customer financial records, had its drives protected with full-disk encryption. From a data security perspective, which of the following represents the MOST significant risk the company must immediately address?
The operational disruption at the branch office due to the server's absence.
The possibility of the thief using the server to compromise the corporate network.
Potential for a regulated data breach and mandatory notification requirements.
The financial loss due to the cost of the physical server hardware.
The correct answer is the potential for a regulated data breach and the associated legal and notification duties. Even though the data is encrypted, many regulations and compliance frameworks (like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS) consider the theft of a device containing sensitive information to be a data breach until it can be proven that the data is inaccessible and the encryption key was not compromised. This triggers a formal incident response process, including potential notification to authorities and affected individuals, which is the most significant and immediate data security concern. The financial loss of the hardware is an asset management concern, not the primary data security risk. The operational disruption is a business continuity risk. The risk of the thief compromising the network is lower, as the stolen server is presumably offline and disconnected, and it is secondary to the immediate risk of the data on the device itself.
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Why is theft of a server considered a potential data breach even if the data is encrypted?
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What steps should an organization take after a server containing sensitive data is stolen?
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How do regulations like GDPR and HIPAA impact how an organization must respond to stolen encrypted data?