How to protect your business from a cyber attack
What is your main concern when it comes to business?
Ask any business owner and you are VERY likely to get the same answer: cyberattacks!
Cyber attacks remain the number one concern for most business owners.
And there is a good reason for it.
Contemporary research concluded that in 2018 there were three times as many medical industry computer data breaches in the medical industry than the previous year, with over 15 million medical records exposed!
An independent investigation from 2019 led investigators to these findings: there were over 1200 data breaches exposing 440 million personal data!
But of all the studies, this conclusion resonates most strongly with the average business owner. Fifty-eight percent of the total number of cyberattacks in 2018 targeted small businesses. Swallow that statistic along with another: Data breach recovery expenses averaged around $ 385,000. all Perhaps most noteworthy is Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report of the same year: 58 percent of all cyberattacks were directed at small businesses, with recovery costs averaging close to $ 385,000 .
What can a company, large, small or medium, do to protect itself from becoming the target of a cyberattack? In addition to technical and learned security tactics, a related insurance policy can be the catalyst for helping you get out of the hacker-created mess, with the coverage paying for associated losses.
Here are just a couple of associated claim examples that prove the point.
Two data breach insurance claim scenarios
Ransomware coverage
An employee working in one of the departments of a global agency accidentally opened an email that exposed the company’s computer system to a virus, possibly affecting up to six hundred and sixty servers worldwide.
The agency hired a global IT forensics firm to deal with the misfortune. This included obtaining the ransom amount that the hacker demanded, negotiating with the criminals, and completing a forensic investigation.
After the IT forensic team managed to get the hackers down from the first ransom demand of $ 540,0000 to $ 450,000, insurance coverage stepped in, paying the ransom and allowing the decryption to proceed.
Negligence coverage:
One patient was livid when she discovered that a nurse employed in the doctor’s office where she had been treated exposed her medical records. He accused the nurse of passing on his private medical records and personal data to other people. To add insult to injury, the patient said, the nurse altered the records to include false information intended to humiliate her.
The doctor’s office issued a statement that there is an ongoing policy of not allowing access and disclosure of patient information. However, the nurse had crossed the lines of the professional creed established by medical practice.
The matter was resolved through a 5-digit settlement that was covered by the insurance company.