Malicious Email Data Breaches – Claiming Compensation

Malicious email data breaches are one of the major risks we face as a digitised society nowadays as much of our living and working lives have moved onto the internet.

Our email address can be a gateway for hackers to try to exploit us for fraud and theft. I am sure that at least most people have received some form of scammer or spammer email in the past. We must always be wary of the risks, especially because hackers and criminals are increasingly perfecting their methods to try to make sure that they can dupe us into believing that they are legitimate organisations.

As a leading privacy claims law firm, we know all too well the impact that data breaches can have on the victims. This is why we represent people for claims for compensation on a No Win, No Fee basis.

What are malicious email data breaches?

There can be a few ways in which we can define what we mean by malicious email data breaches. One of the more obvious ones can be where hackers will look to steal or exploit email addresses in order to commit something like fraud or theft. We could also be talking about malicious emails that have been received as a result of a data breach, with victims being targeted because their personal information has previously been exposed.

As much of society continues to communicate electronically these days, the risk factor of malicious email data breaches is not something that any of us can afford to ignore. We must all be wary in respect of malicious email data breaches and that we may be targeted at any time. If we are ever notified that our email address has been involved in some form of leak, breach or hack, we need to be extra careful in knowing that we could now receive communication from spammers, hackers and phishers.

What can you do about data breaches?

If you have been affected by a data breach, leak or a hack, the GDPR can entitle you to claim compensation. The compensation you are claiming will normally be monetary damages which can account for any distress or loss that you have suffered.

In most cases, you will pursue general damages for any distress that has been caused by the loss of control of your personal information. The law can entitle us to have specific control over who knows what about us because we have the right to privacy. If our control over our privacy is lost, this can make us feel worried, upset, angry, disturbed, and anxious. When it comes to claims for general damages, what we are seeking is compensation for what we might refer to as “injury to feelings”.

If you have lost any money as a result of a data breach or had to pay out any form of expenses, these can be included as part of a claim as well. In most cases, a victim will claim for just the distress and will have, fortunately, not lost out anything; but these are factors that we can consider.

No Win, No Fee help for a breach of data privacy

If you have been affected in a breach of data privacy matter, you could be entitled to claim compensation and we may be able to represent you for a case on a No Win, No Fee basis. What this means is that we can write off our legal fees if the claim does not succeed, subject to the agreed terms and conditions that are in place.

We work this way simply because we are big believers in access to justice. We do not think that it would be fair if you had to pay for a losing case, and we know that most people would not be able to afford to pay for a losing case either. In fact, we expect most people would not bother pursuing a claim if they knew that there were risks of having to pay something in the event that the case did not succeed. As such, it is important that we work this way to ensure that people can access justice fairly and appropriately.