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June 15, 2022

Hello and another happy warm Wednesday. We’re halfway through one of two middle months and it’s hot. Summer is here*, y’all. ^{*On June 21.}

This week we’re covering cyber insurance, a topic pretty every customer shudders at. But why is that? Do we all hate carrying car insurance as much as cyber insurance? Or does the additional policy, on top of everything else, seem like overkill?

Whatever the reason, it's important to know what cyber insurance covers before writing it off. We’ve covered tons of different ways to mitigate the threat of attacks, but it’s impossible to 100% prevent every single kind of attack.

Here’s the reality, outlined by The Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report for 2022:

48% of companies reported a cyber attack in the past 12 months.
$17,000 is now the median cost of a cyber attack across the board.
20% of those attacked said they risked insolvency because of a cyber incident.

So if, and possibly when, something does get through your defenses to strike your network, cyber insurance can be there to help fill in some critical gaps. We’ll talk more about specifics below.

Father’s Day is this Sunday. Make dad proud by upgrading your cyber insurance – you’ll be surprised at how much he’ll appreciate the effort. (Well, if he’s an IT specialist or just really into IT tech support topics, at least.)

TECH TIP

Not the sales email from Bass Pro Shops

So you’ve read all of these Tech Tips and internalized all the content. Today, you’ve received a phishing email? Now what??

STOP! DROP! And ROLL! ?? ?? ??

No, no, that’s when you’re aflame. Phishing emails have an entirely different emergency response plan, one that you should be covering with every single one of your employees, contractors, and other folks in your network.

Follow the tips above and you'll be the hero your company never knew it needed.

Deep dive: Phishing Works - Here's Why It Works and Why You Should Care

Deeper dive: Protect yourself from phishing

HEADLINES

It takes a network to beat a network

^{Photo by Ameer Basheer on Unsplash}

There are plenty of topics to discuss in the world of technology, including Microsoft updating their baseline security, so we found a couple of articles that we thought were especially relevant and broke them into a few digestible bullet points, just for you!

Cyber Insurance And Reassessing The Cyber Business | Forbes

Key Takeaways:

There are four generalized categories of potential losses from the fallout of data breaches:
1. Business and operation disruption costs (during recovery activities)
2. Ransom demands
3. Legal liabilities
4. Lawsuits
Cyber insurance isn’t a cure-all for keeping your business safe, but one step of many others that a business should be taking to protect itself.

5 takeaways from the RSA Conference | Cyber Security Dive

The RSA held their IT cybersecurity conference in San Fransisco last week. We pulled the top three takeaways from Matt Kapkos' top 5.

Key Takeaways:

Cybersecurity demands a collective front
Cybercriminals are better organized than those they target. This calls for cohesive action to defend against the threat. “It takes a network to beat a network,” National Cyber Director Chris Inglis noted.
Attackers target human responses
“The attacker has evolved beyond just targeting a system and now they’re targeting a human response in their victims based on leverage,” said Charles Henderson, head of IBM Security’s X-Force unit.
Cybercrime expected to hit $10.5 trillion by 2025
Forcepoint CEO Manny Rivelo said, “If you compare this to a gross domestic product, it would be the third-largest economy in the world behind the U.S. and China."
Read the other two here!

DEEP DIVE

The small business guide to cyber insurance

^{Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash}

For small businesses that store sensitive information online or on a computer –  like the one you are a part of, since you’re reading this – cyber insurance will likely prove critical in the future. Among small businesses, the average reported cyberattack cost in 2021 was about $25,600. While that may not seem like an earth-shattering amount to some bigger corporations, for many that sum would prove insurmountable and then some.

For your notes, cybersecurity insurance is basically split into two categories: First-party and Liability coverage.

First-party coverage will defer costs during the recovery stage. Every policy and provider is different, but policies generally provide coverage for the investigation of a break-in, risk assessment for future cyber attacks, lost revenue due to business interruption, and ransomware attack payments (based on your coverage limits).

Whether you work B2C, B2B, or some other kind of sales system, you will be liable to cover the damages if your client/partner information is compromised through a cyberattack. Thus, cyber liability coverage protects your business in the event a third party sues the original policyholder for damages as a result of data crime.

There’s lots more to learn about and plenty of questions that get answered in our full blog – you can read it all here!

Conclusion

We’ve talked a lot about how to prevent attacks, and while these methods are extremely effective at keeping you safe, but like using bug spray in the summer, sometimes there’s one that gets through your defenses no matter how many precautions you take. In this metaphor, cyber insurance is kind of like the calamine lotion that helps after you get bit.

If you made it this far, you probably see value in learning more about cyber insurance. We're here to answer your questions! Give us a call at (864) 552-1291 and we'll help you evaluate your capabilities and options. Also, consider following us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter!