Our daily business operations also require us to collect and/or retain sensitive data such as intellectual property, proprietary business information and data related to customers, employees, suppliers and business partners within our networking infrastructure including data from individuals subject to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, that is subject to privacy and security laws, regulations and/or customer-imposed controls. Despite our efforts to protect such data, the loss or breach of such data due to various causes including material security breaches, catastrophic events, extreme weather, natural disasters, power outages, system failures, computer viruses, improper data handling, programming errors, unauthorized access and employee error or malfeasance could result in wide reaching negative impacts to our business. As such, the ongoing maintenance and security of this information is pertinent to the success of our business operations and our strategic goals.
In addition, we operate in an environment where there are different and potentially conflicting data privacy laws and regulations in effect or expected to go into effect in the future, including regulations related to devices connected through IoT, in the various jurisdictions in which we operate, and we must understand and comply with such laws and regulations while ensuring our data is secure.
Finally, the regulatory environment around cybersecurity is increasingly challenging, with additional reporting requirements around cybersecurity, risk management, strategy and governance, as well as increased disclosure obligations around the occurrence of material cybersecurity incidents. These requirements may present material obligations and risks to our business, including significantly expanded compliance burdens, costs and enforcement risks. We may also be obligated to report a cybersecurity incident before we have been able to fully assess its impact or remediate the underlying issue, and it could potentially reveal system vulnerabilities to threat actors. Failure to timely report incidents under these or other similar rules could also result in monetary fines, sanctions, or subject us to other forms of liability.