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: cyber attacks!
Cyber attacks remain the number one concern for most business owners.
And there is a good reason for that.
Contemporary research concluded that in 2018 there were triple the number of medical industry computer data breaches in the medical industry than the previous year, with over 15 million medical records exposed!
A 2019 independent investigation led researchers to these findings: there were over 1,200 data breaches exposing 440 million pieces of personal data!
But of all the studies, this conclusion resonates the most with average business owners. Fifty-eight percent of the total number of cyberattacks in 2018 targeted small businesses. Swallow that stat along with another: Data breach recovery expenses averaged around $385,000. all Perhaps most notable is Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report for 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 cyber attack? Aside from the technical and learned security tactics, a related insurance policy can be the catalyst for assistance in getting you out of the hackers’ mess, with coverage paying for associated losses.
Here are just a couple of examples associated with claims 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 impacting up to 660 servers worldwide.
The agency hired a global IT forensics company to deal with the mishap. This included obtaining the ransom amount the hacker demanded, negotiating with the criminals, and completing a forensic investigation.
After the IT forensics team got the hackers to drop the first ransom demand from $540,0000 to $450,000, insurance coverage stepped in, paying the ransom, allowing the decryption to go ahead.
Malpractice coverage:
A patient was furious when she discovered that a nurse employed at the medical office where she had been treated had exposed her medical records. She accused the nurse of passing her private medical records and her personal data to other people. To add insult to injury, the patient said, the nurse altered her records to include false information intended to humiliate her.
The doctor’s office issued a statement that there is a permanent policy not to allow 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.
