Our database and network facilities, and those of our third-party service providers, are vulnerable to attempted cybersecurity attacks that may take a variety of forms, including, infrastructure, botnets, malicious file attacks, cross-site scripting, credential abuse, ransomware, bugs, viruses, worms, malicious software programs, and denial of service attack. These attacks could lead to misappropriation of our data, corruption of our databases, or limitation of access to our information systems. To defend against these threats, we have a series of controls focusing on both prevention and detection, including firewalls, intrusion detection systems, automated scanning and testing, server hardening, antivirus software, training, and patch management. We cannot guarantee that these efforts will work as planned. We make significant investments in servers, storage, and other network infrastructure to prevent such incidents, but cannot guarantee that these efforts will work as planned.
These cybersecurity incidents or other significant disruptions could be caused by persons inside our organization, persons outside our organization with authorized access to systems inside our organization, or by individuals outside our organization. . Although the cybersecurity incidents that we have experienced to date, as well as those reported to us by our third-party partners, have not had a material effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations, they could be more damaging in the future.
Our business requires that we securely collect, process, store, transmit, and dispose of confidential information relating to our operations, subscribers, employees, and other third parties. In particular, Paid Subscribers must give us information (including name, mailing address, phone number, email address, and credit card information) (collectively "personal information"), which we use to administer our services. We also require Free Subscribers (as defined below) to provide personal information, such as email addresses, during the membership registration process. Additionally, we rely on security and authentication technology licensed from third parties to perform real-time credit card authorization and verification. At times also rely on third parties, including technology consulting firms, to help protect our infrastructure from security threats.
However, despite our investments, these measures do not guarantee absolute security, and improper access to or release of confidential information has occurred in the past. Any cybersecurity incident could result in the loss or destruction of, inaccessibility or unauthorized access to, or use, alteration, disclosure, or acquisition of, data. Such incidents could also result in damage to our reputation, litigation, regulatory investigations, or other liabilities. These attacks may come from individual hackers, criminal groups, and/or state-sponsored organizations.
We have suffered in the past, and may in the future suffer, malicious attacks by individuals or groups (including criminal groups and those sponsored by nation-states, terrorist organizations, or global corporations seeking to illicitly obtain technology or other intellectual property) seeking to attack our products and services or penetrate our network infrastructure to gain access to confidential information, including personal information, or to launch or coordinate distributed denial of service attacks. While we have dedicated resources intended to maintain appropriate levels of cybersecurity and implemented systems and processes intended to help identify cyberattacks and protect our network infrastructure, these attacks have become increasingly frequent, sophisticated, and difficult to detect, and often are not detected until after they have been launched against a target. We may be unable to anticipate these attacks or implement sufficient preventative measures, and we therefore cannot assure you that our preventative measures will be successful in preventing compromise and/or disruption of our information technology systems and related data. We furthermore cannot be certain that our remedial measures will fully mitigate the adverse financial consequences of any cyber-attack or incident.
Recent well-publicized security breaches at other companies have led to further enhanced government and regulatory scrutiny of the measures taken by companies to protect against cyberattacks. It may in the future result in heightened cybersecurity requirements, including the implementation of more robust internal measures and additional regulatory expectations for oversight of customers, vendors, and service providers. Our information technology systems interact with those of customers, vendors, and service providers. Our contracts with those parties typically require them to implement and maintain adequate security controls, but we may not have the ability to effectively monitor the security measures of all our third-parties to meet such additional regulatory expectations.
Additionally, we engage third-party vendors and service providers to store and process some of our customers' personal information. Those vendors may be the targets of cyberattacks. Our ability to monitor our vendors' and service providers' data security is limited, and, in any event, attackers may be able to circumvent those security measures, resulting in the theft and misuse of our and our customers' data.
If our security measures are breached and, as a result, someone obtains unauthorized access to our data, our reputation may be damaged, our business may suffer, and we could incur significant liability. Even the perception of inadequate security may damage our reputation and hurt our ability to win new customers and retain and receive timely payments from existing customers. In addition, we could be subject to private litigation and actions from government regulators, which could cost a lot to defend and/or result in significant penalties and reputational damage. Finally, we could be required to expend significant capital and other resources to address any data security incident or breach, which may not be covered or fully covered by our insurance and which may involve payments for investigations, forensic analyses, legal advice, public relations advice, system repair or replacement, or other services.