We all think we are invincible, that terrible thing like being hacked or some sort of cyber-attack is never going to happen to us. “We are too small.” “We work in a boring sector.” “We don’t have anything valuable.” “I have a password on my computer.” “We have anti-virus.” Unfortunately, none of those things protect you from cyber-attacks. Just think about how many times at the BBQ or a networking lunch you hear a horror story, that someone clicked on a link and that was it! No email access, customer data accessed or worse, yet customer and employee data stolen by hackers.
It’s a story that’s becoming all too familiar for the small and medium business and the questions you need to ask are: can your business really afford to be without email for even a day? Would you be able to weather the reputation storm when you need to disclose to your clients that their personal data has been compromised? No matter the sector, size or turnover of your business – you all have customers, and you all hold information. This is what makes every business a target for cyber-attacks. From a text, email or video with a link that includes malware, there’s plenty of ways for cyber criminals to access your many systems. That means accessing your data and information, potentially your client details, banking details or confidential information.
So, how do you stay ahead of cyber risks, ensuring you are cyber resilient?
Managing your cyber risks, security and resilience is now an essential part of any business. Technology is here to stay and will continue to evolve at a rapid rate. As will the skills and tactics of the people and organisations who undertake cyber-attacks.
So, in an evolving space, every business needs to consider a constant approach to managing its cyber risk. Just like you do with managing risks in every other part of your business. We believe that prevention and protection need to work hand in hand, and have outlined some considerations for how businesses can manage their exposure to cyber risk:
1. Multi-Factor authentication (MFA): Use at least two pieces of information to validate a user’s identity to access your systems.
2. Secured, encrypted, and tested backups: Ensure you have a great backup system in place so that if something goes wrong you can restore or recover data.
3. Email and web filtering: A good filtering system will block malicious emails, attachments, or inappropriate websites.
4. Commercially licensed firewall or anti-virus protection software: A firewall is your first line of defense. It monitors traffic to and from your systems, blocking or allowing access based on your security rules. Antivirus software provides an additional layer of security preventing, detecting, and removing software viruses should they get through your firewall.
5. Software updates and patches installed: Ensuring software is up to date with the latest improvements is a necessary action to protect your system from vulnerabilities.
6. Cyber Insurance: Specific insurance cover for financial loss and expenses that businesses may suffer because of a cyber crime. This ensures your business is cyber resilient should a cyber-incident occur.
There’s plenty more things to consider so we recommend you talk to an IT professional and an Insurance professional and get them to work together to help create a robust plan of prevention and protection.
Cyber Insurance: a cost-effective solution that’s absolutely worth the investment.
With a cyber-incident, there’s often a privacy breach – i.e., private, or confidential information/data is exposed, and/or possibly loss of access to your IT systems that enable you to operate effectively.
At its most basic, Cyber Insurance can provide cover for the costs associated with responding to a privacy breach, this could be things like:
- incident response costs and 24/7 emergency hotline
- notifying third parties about the data breach
- performing computer forensics
- public relations to mitigate any reputational harm.
It can also include cover for things like:
- liability cover to protect you from third-party claims from clients
- extortion attempts
- loss of income or covering operational expenses
- recovery of data
- regulatory fines
- defamation or copyright infringement.
With prevention and protection, you can manage a cyber-attack.
If your business is unfortunate enough to experience a cyber-attack, good insurance is vital to get your business back up and running quickly. It will help ensure you have the protection that your business deserves. Afterall you’ve spent hours of your precious time in building a successful asset so let’s protect it.
For more information visit https://www.ii-a.com.au/ or talk with our experienced team about the right Cyber Insurance policy for you by calling 1300 002 481.
About ii-A
ii-A is a dedicated team of professionals that specialise in delivering unique, customised and innovative insurance solutions for you and your business. We provide personalised service and focus on adding value to your business while delivering excellent customer service.
