Data Leak.

Accidental or negligent exposure of sensitive data, usually through misconfiguration or human error rather than an active attacker breaking in. It belongs to the Attacks & Threats category of cybersecurity.

Accidental or negligent exposure of sensitive data, usually through misconfiguration or human error rather than an active attacker breaking in.

A data leak is the unintentional exposure of information that should have remained private. Unlike a data breach, where an attacker actively bypasses controls, a leak typically results from a misconfigured cloud bucket, an open database, a public source-code repository, an email sent to the wrong recipient, or a lost device. Once data is reachable, threat actors may discover, copy, and weaponise it. Defences include cloud security posture management (CSPM), strict bucket and IAM policies, DLP tools, secret-scanning in code repositories, configuration baselines, asset inventories, and ongoing security awareness training for staff handling sensitive data.

Defences for Data Leak typically combine technical controls and operational practices, as detailed in the full definition above.

Common alternative names include: Information leak, Accidental disclosure.