In the ordinary course of our business, we and the third parties with whom we work process sensitive data, which includes personal information and our or our customers' or other third parties' sensitive, proprietary, and confidential information. As a result, we and the third parties with whom we work face a variety of evolving threats that have in the past and could in the future cause security incidents. Security incidents that compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of this information could result from cyber-attacks, computer viruses (such as worms, spyware, or other malware), social engineering (including phishing), ransomware, supply chain attacks, denial of service attacks, credential harvesting or stuffing, efforts by individuals or groups of hackers and sophisticated organizations, including state-sponsored organizations, errors or malfeasance of our personnel, including personnel who have authorized access to our systems and/or information, and security vulnerabilities in the software or systems on which we rely, including third-party systems. In particular, severe ransomware attacks, including those perpetrated by organized criminal threat actors, nation-states, and nation-state-supported actors, are becoming increasingly prevalent and severe and can lead to significant interruptions in our operations, loss of information and income, reputational harm, and diversion of funds. We have also experienced, and may in the future experience, inadvertent disclosures of confidential information, including source code, caused by accidental actions or inactions by personnel who have authorized access to our systems and the systems of third-party repositories of such information. If our personnel access authorization policies and processes for our systems and/or information are too permissive or if we do not implement adequate safeguards or controls in our information systems environments, we may experience additional security incidents due to errors or malfeasance from our personnel, customer dissatisfaction, loss of our proprietary and confidential information, or an increased risk of third-party breaches or cyber-attacks. Extortion payments may alleviate the negative impact of a ransomware attack, but we may be unwilling or unable to make such payments due to, for example, applicable laws or regulations prohibiting such payments.
Some threat actors now engage and are expected to continue to engage in cyber-attacks, including without limitation nation-state actors for geopolitical reasons and in conjunction with military conflicts and defense activities. During times of war and other major conflicts, we and the third parties with whom we work may be vulnerable to a heightened risk of these attacks, including retaliatory cyber-attacks, that could materially disrupt our systems and operations, supply chain, and ability to produce, sell and distribute our services.
We face unique threats and vulnerabilities as a data streaming software company, including but not limited to, adverse consequences resulting from any vulnerabilities in our offerings and customer misuse of our offerings. The reliability and continuous availability of our offerings are critical to our success. We take steps designed to detect, mitigate, and remediate vulnerabilities in our information systems (such as our hardware and/or software, including that of third parties with whom we work). We may not, however, detect and remediate all such vulnerabilities including on a timely basis. Further, we may experience delays in developing and deploying remedial measures and patches designed to address identified vulnerabilities. Even if we have issued or otherwise made patches or information for vulnerabilities in our software applications, products or services, our customers may be unwilling or unable to deploy such patches and use such information effectively and in a timely manner. Vulnerabilities could be exploited and result in a security incident.
Additionally, certain functional areas of our workforce remain in a remote work environment and outside of our corporate network security protection boundaries, which imposes additional risks to our business, including increased risk of industrial espionage, phishing, and other cybersecurity attacks, including those that are state-sponsored or politically motivated, and unauthorized access to or dissemination of sensitive, proprietary, or confidential information. Future acquisitions could also expose us to additional cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities from any newly acquired information technology infrastructure.
In addition, our reliance on third-party service providers could introduce new cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, including supply-chain attacks, and other threats to our business operations. We rely on third parties to operate our critical business systems and process the sensitive, proprietary, and confidential information that we own, process, or control, including customer information and proprietary data and information, including source code. Our ability to monitor these third parties' information security practices is limited, and these third parties may not have adequate security measures and could experience a security incident that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the systems they operate for us or the information they process on our behalf. If our third-party service providers experience a security incident or other interruption, we could experience adverse consequences. While we may be entitled to damages if our third-party service providers fail to satisfy their data privacy or security-related obligations to us, any award may be insufficient to cover our damages, or we may be unable to recover such award. In addition, supply-chain attacks have increased in frequency and severity, and we cannot guarantee that third parties' infrastructure in our supply chain or our third-party partners' supply chains have not been compromised.
Cybercrime and hacking techniques are constantly evolving, and we or third parties with whom we work may be unable to anticipate attempted security breaches, react in a timely manner, or implement adequate preventative measures, particularly given increasing use of hacking techniques designed to circumvent controls, avoid detection, and remove or obfuscate forensic artifacts. These risks are likely to increase as we continue to grow and process, control, store, and transmit increasingly large amounts of data.
While we have taken steps designed to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our systems and the sensitive, proprietary, and confidential information that we own, process, or control, our security measures or those of our third-party vendors may not be able to anticipate or implement effective preventive and remedial measures against all data privacy and security threats. No security solution, strategy, or measures can address all possible security threats or block all methods of penetrating a network or otherwise perpetrating a security incident. We and our third-party providers have been and may in the future be compromised by the aforementioned or similar threats, which have resulted and may in the future result in unauthorized, unlawful, or accidental processing of our information, or vulnerabilities in the products or systems upon which we rely. In addition, we do not control the content that our customers transmit, process, and maintain using our offerings. Since some of our customers use our offerings for the transmission or storage of personal information and our security measures are, or are believed to have been, breached, our business may suffer, and we could incur significant liability.
We employ a shared responsibility model where our customers are responsible for using, configuring and otherwise implementing security measures related to our platform, services and products in a manner that meets applicable cybersecurity standards, complies with laws, and addresses their information security risk. As part of this shared responsibility security model, we make certain security features available to our customers that can be implemented at our customers' discretion, or identify security areas or measures for which our customers are responsible. For example, customers have options on how they wish to authenticate their user identity to Confluent Cloud, including options such as local accounts or implementing SSO. Customers can choose their preferred method which allows them flexibility in their implementation. In certain cases where our customers choose not to implement, or incorrectly implement, those features or measures, misuse our services, or otherwise experience their own vulnerabilities, policy violations, credential exposure or security incidents, even if we are not the cause of a resulting customer security issue or incident, our customer relationships, reputation, and revenue could be adversely impacted.
If we, or a third party with whom we work, experience a security incident that results in the compromise of the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of our systems or the sensitive, proprietary, or confidential information that we own, process, or control, or the perception that one has occurred, this could result in a loss of customer confidence in the security of our platform and damage to our brand, reduce the demand for our offerings, disrupt business operations, result in the exfiltration of proprietary data and information, including source code, require us to spend material resources to investigate or correct the incident and to prevent future security incidents, expose us to legal liabilities, including litigation, regulatory enforcement (including investigations, fines, penalties, audits, and inspections), additional oversight, restrictions or bans on processing personal information, indemnity obligations, claims by our customers or other relevant parties that we have failed to comply with contractual obligations to implement specified security measures, and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We cannot assure you that the limitations of liability in our contracts would be enforceable or adequate or would otherwise protect us from such liabilities or damages. Applicable data privacy and security obligations may also require us to notify relevant stakeholders of security incidents. Such notifications are costly, and the notifications or the failure to comply with such requirements could lead to material adverse impacts such as negative publicity, loss of customer confidence in our services or security measures, investigations, and private or government claims.
In addition to experiencing a security incident, third parties may gather, collect, or infer sensitive information about us from public sources, data brokers, or other means that reveal competitively sensitive details about our organization and could be used to undermine our competitive advantage or market position. Additionally, sensitive information of Confluent or our customers could be leaked, disclosed, or revealed as a result of or in connection with our employees', personnel's, or vendors' use of GenAI technologies.
Additionally, we cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will be adequate or otherwise protect us with respect to claims, expenses, fines, penalties, business loss, data loss, litigation, regulatory actions, or other impacts arising out of security incidents, particularly if we experience an event that impacts multiple customers, that such coverage will continue to be available on acceptable terms or at all, or that such coverage will pay future claims. Any of these results could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.