You probably have a cyber-insurance problem, but don’t know it

by | Jun 14, 2021 | Security

 

Good practice last year isn’t good enough anymore. 

Even cyber-insurance providers are getting more selective before accepting cover, or worse, before paying claims.

With the number of claims skyrocketing insurers are increasingly asking, “What did you do to protect yourself from the obvious and known risk from cyberhackers?”

The levels of protection you put in place 1 or 2 years ago probably aren’t adequate for the threats today.  They are evolving so rapidly.

 

So what can you do?

Hackers aren’t waiting for you to make a decision to put protections in place.

They are spending every waking moment trying to find new ways of stealing your data. They have set themselves up as businesses to do evil. They hire the best and brightest talent, and have the latest tech – simply because it’s worth it. Its organised crime and these guys are the mafia of the modern age.

We see continuous hacks on most of our clients. These are attempts to penetrate their firewalls, or guess their passwords on Office 365. We see fake webpages through phishing attempts, and we see techniques to harvest password reset questions by asking for favourite teachers, or first cars, or favourite band on platforms like FaceBook.

That’s why your cyber-insurance and business continuity insurance providers will be starting to ask more demanding questions when you renew your cover. They are well aware of the risk and they want to know that you have taken all reasonable steps.

You need to be able to reassure them that you have:

  • deep endpoint protection
  • a penetration and vulnerability assessment
  • data governance that is fit for purpose
  • awareness programmes for all users and verification
  • dark web monitoring
  • multi-factor authentication and complex passwords

and so much more – the very items we have included in our KARE for Security services. 

The question for you, and your insurer, is what level of protection is appropriate for your organisation so your insurer will cover you if you need to claim?  That is why we have two levels of cyber-protection, and, because this isn’t static, it is why we keep investing and researching additional tools to help defend you from harm.

The Hackers are turning up their attacks on you – are you turning up your defences to match?

One quote we saw recently that rang true was:

“A cybercriminal only has to be lucky once, while a defender has to be lucky every minute of every day.”

 

Refer – Combating Ransomware – A Comprehensive Framework for Action: Key Recommendations from the Ransomware Task Force (securityandtechnology.org)

What’s your next step? We’ve created a simple 9-point checklist to help you navigate the cyber-risk landscape and find the right solution for you.