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.”
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.
Is the organisation doing enough to get the cyber-security cost/risk balance right?
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Are your staff your biggest security risk?
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Do you have an appropriate Data Privacy Policy?
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Do you have the right relationship with your IT provider?
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Three key questions to assess if your IT strategy is meeting your business needs
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Who really controls your IT systems and your data?
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Are you maximising your technology investment?
Are you maximising your technology investment? When you last made a significant IT investment, you had a clear understanding of why you made it and the return you were seeking to achieve. You might even have had to justify it to a board and make various assurances...
IT is more than silicon – have you ever stress tested the human side of your I.T?
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Are the appropriate IT Governance controls in place to protect your business value?
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Are you meeting your obligations to shareholders/stakeholders?
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