Cyber risk liability insurance helps protect you against claims and supports your profitability in the event of a cyber-attack or breach.
Cybercrime is on the rise. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) received more than 67,500 cybercrime reports in the 2020–21 financial year. This is nearly 13 percent more than the previous fiscal year, and equivalent to one cyber-attack every 8 minutes. So, what’s to stop you or your company from being next?
Data breaches and cyber-attacks can leave businesses with devastating financial, reputational, and legal consequences. You may be forced to stop trading if your systems are down, or you lose data. These threats could also impact clients who rely on your products and services or any commercial contracts you might have.
According to the 2020 ACSC Annual Cyber Threat Report, the COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly increased dependency on digital solutions for both individuals and organisations. This has correlated with an increase in opportunities online for malicious cyber-attacks.
One of the top cybersecurity trends that we recommend businesses consider and plan for over the next few years is remote work.
Stay Safe When Working Remotely
One of the things that COVID-19 has changed about our lives is how businesses operate. Many businesses were forced into remote work because of lockdowns around the globe. While COVID-19 regulations have eventually repealed, and lockdowns ended, many businesses evolved to a hybrid model allowing employees to continue to work remotely. The benefits attached to working remotely allowed businesses to provide staff with greater flexibility and improve their work/ life balance. However, remote work also brings challenges in managing information security.
The security risks presented by remote work have been a hot topic in cybersecurity. As large portions of their workforce work remotely, organisations become increasingly vulnerable. For example, a home office is less secure than a centralised office network. It does not have added security measures like firewalls, real-time monitoring, and access management by an information security team. The use of personal devices by employees has meant that they must rely on them to log in and stay connected. This has led to increased vulnerability for businesses as adequate security controls have not been implemented to deal with the scattered workforce.
Remote working is a cybersecurity trend that organisations must address immediately. Information security teams must identify and fix vulnerabilities that are associated with distributed workers and implement security controls and measures to increase monitoring capabilities. Employees should also be made aware of ever-changing cyber threats.
So how do you prevent a cyber-attack on your business?
We have four steps that you can take to help prevent your company being affected by cyber-attacks and breaches.
Keep your data safe by upgrading your devices.
Cybercriminals are always looking to find a way into your devices. Your software must be up to date to avoid any potential vulnerabilities that could allow cybercriminals to gain access. The best way to do this is to make sure you download the most recent software. Turning on automated downloads will ensure you never forget to upgrade your software.
Regularly back up data to the cloud or an external hard drive.
Backups are essential to protect your data from being lost, damaged, destroyed, or hacked. It can be costly, if not impossible, to restore your data if your network or device isn’t backed up.
Multi-factor authentication protects your accounts.
Multi-factor authentication is a secure measure that requires multiple security measures to obtain access to a platform, device, or server. This could include a pin, fingerprint, email, SMS, password, or login. Cybercriminals may be able to steal one type of identity easily, but multi-factor authentication will force them to use all the required security measures necessary to gain access.
Purchase cyber-risk liability insurance coverage
While you can try avoiding cyber threats, it is impossible to protect your systems completely from cyber-attacks. However, in the event of an attack, you can ensure you have a backup.
So, what’s the backup? Cyber liability insurance. Although it won’t prevent a cyber-attack from happening, this type of insurance policy can help to manage the situation and minimise the impact on your company. Insurance coverage will always be cheaper than closing a business.
For more information on how you can protect yourself against cyber-attacks, visit the ACSC Website.
Insure your business against losses from cybercrime with cyber risk liability insurance.
Cyber insurance is essential to help you recover from losses. Did you know that cyber security insurance claims make up one of the largest percentages of insurance claims for small and medium-sized businesses? Yet, a significant number of these businesses are still uninsured. Don’t be one of them.
Cyber insurance policies can be beneficial to almost any company, even those with smaller IT departments or budgets, who could struggle to pay for the repercussions of an attack.
To better understand how to protect your business from cyber exposures, please feel free to contact one of our friendly Cyber insurance Consultants today.