Cyber insurance isn’t a new concept, but in the past 5 years, the industry has seen a substantial jump in growth as malicious cyber attacks continue to target businesses across the globe. Gone are the days when only the big guys were worried about being targets. Now that ransomware is widely available as a turn key money-maker for even amateur hackers, attacks continue to show up as daily news topics.
How cyber insurance can protect your business
From data center fires to data breaches, cyber insurance provides coverage for a variety of incidents that impact your data. Not only does cyber insurance cover direct losses, but it also covers any claims made against your business as a result of the incident.
A disaster can be financially devastating. In Fact, up to 60% of businesses who are impacted by a data breach never financially recover from their data loss disaster. The cyber insurance industry is expected to grow to over $20 Billion by 2025 as more businesses make the move to invest in cyber insurance.
General cyber insurance coverage includes:
- Network Security & Privacy Liability
- Regulatory Actions
- Cyber Threat of Extortion
- Incident Management & Forensic Costs
- Data Restoration Costs
Better data protection = lower insurance premiums
Cyber insurance providers use specific criteria in order to asses how risky it is for them to insure your business. Some of these include industry, annual gross revenue, types of data stored and what security measures your business has taken to decrease your risk of a data breach, cyber attack etc. That being said, it’s in your best interest to have an up to date disaster recovery plan in order to fully protect your data. The discount that your insurance company will give you is just an added bonus. The following best data protection practices are just some of the ways to keep premiums down while keeping your data safe. Ask yourself these questions:
Employee education: Your employees are a part of your first line of defense when it comes to cyber attacks. Has your business rolled out periodic training so that they are knowledgeable in identifying threats such as phishing emails? Do your employees that know what to do in the even of a cyber attack? If so, they can enable your IT teams to work quickly to contain it, mitigating expensive downtime.
Backing up critical data: If you’re not backing up your data, then it won’t be available when it comes time to recover it.
Disaster Recovery: If your data was encrypted, would you be able to quickly restore it, or would your business be faced to pay ransom to have it released back to you by the hacker? Side note: that is, if the hacker actually gives it back to you.
Cyber threat monitoring: Are you working with a Managed Security Services Provider (or MSSP) in making sure your network is monitored 24/7 against cyber threats? How is my IT team identifying potential threats before they become an actual problem for my business.
If the answer is “no” to any of the above questions, HostedBizz can assess the state of your current IT to ensure that your data protection is up to date, and that you can take advantage of what low premiums your cyber insurance provider is able to provide to you. Not only will a well thought out data protection plan will enable you to focus on your business, while we take care of the rest.
For more information about our cloud-based data protection offerings, get in touch with our team today!