Corporate Governance and the Insider Threat: Investigating the Impact of Management Teams on Data Breaches

Data breaches have been on the rise for the past decade and no industry has been spared. Trusted personnel within the organization poses a major challenge because of the potential to cause significant damage. Costs of data breaches are only going to rise in the future, so it is important to analyze the role of senior management in protecting their organizations. The current study addresses this cybersecurity threat by exploring the impact of management teams on data breaches in the US. More specifically, we examine one of the critical infrastructure sectors - communications. We focus on T-Mobile, because from 2009 to 2023 the company has been affected by twelve data breaches, caused by both malicious hackers and employees. We incorporate two kernel theories, signaling theory and upper echelon theory, to develop our research model, and understand whether management teams and attackers' intent have an impact on stock market returns.