Can you afford not to have cyber risk protection insurance?

Cyber insurance is one of the fastest growing areas of cover for most businesses, as the fallout from a cyber-breach can prove to be a real threat to a company’s bottom line.

Cyber criminals don’t discriminate on business size, and they’re not all after the same thing. Whilst it’s true that the press only tends to report on attacks at larger scale corporate companies, like the British Airways data breach, there are many incidents that never get mentioned.

Whilst larger firms such as British Airways are an attractive and lucrative target for hackers, these firms are known to have much tighter cyber security defences, meaning that a breach would take much more skill to coordinate a successful attack. Meanwhile Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) pose a different attraction, due to the lower level of security and perception of the business themselves that they are not a target.

SMEs are unlikely to possess the extensive, company-wide process for actions such as processing payments to suppliers, hence a social engineering fraud style attack may take days or even hours to be successful in an SME. Whereas this same process could take a hacker organisation months, if not years, to carry out for a large organisation.

In general terms, a social engineering attack will involve initial penetration into the firm’s systems, so that correspondence and company processes can be monitored. In the case of the British Airways breach, hackers were able to infiltrate the firm’s website and application, in order to monitor transactions and steal confidential card details from British Airways customers purchasing flights.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, those customers affected are able to claim for not only any lost expense, but also damages such as mental anguish and stress as a result of the data breach. Any firms who purchase a cyber policy should check that their policy does not exclude such aspects of cover as this may leave the company potentially exposed to this element of a cyber claim.

Martin Camp, Divisional Director at Howden says, “No matter how good your security procedures are, hackers are usually one step ahead of them in their attempts to gain access to systems and data. Cyber insurance policies can cover both losses sustained by a business as well as any liability for damages claimed by a third party.

For more information on the dangers of cyberattacks, and how Cyber Risk Protection insurance can protect your business, call one of our cyber specialists today on 0207 543 2806.