What is your chief worry when it comes to business?
Ask any business owner and it is VERY likely that you will get the same response: cyber attacks!
Cyber attacks consistently remain the primary concern of most company owners.
And there is good reason for that.
Contemporary research concluded that in 2018 there were triple the amount of medical industry computer data breaches in the medical industry than the previous year, with more than 15 million medical records exposed!
An independent 2019 inquiry led researchers to these findings: there were 1,200-plus data breaches leaving 440 million personal data exposed!
But of all the studies, this conclusion resonates loudest among the average business owner. Fifty-eight percent of the total amount of 2018 cyber attacks were aimed at small business corporations. Swallow that statistic along with another one: data breach recovery expenses averaged about $385,000. all Perhaps most noteworthy is the same year’s Data Breach Investigations Report conducted by Verizon: 58 percent of all cyber attacks were directed towards small business, with recovery costs at an average of close to $385,000.
What can a company – large, small or medium-sized – do to shield itself from becoming the target of a cyber attack? Aside from technical and learned safety tactics, a related insurance policy can be the catalyst of assistance to climb out of the mess created by hackers – with the coverage paying for associated losses.
Here are just a couple of associated claims examples that prove the point.
Two Data Breach Insurance Claim Scenarios
Ransomware Coverage
An employee working in one of the departments of a global agency accidentally opened an email that exposed the business computer system to a virus, possibly impacting up to six hundred and sixty servers all around the world.
The agency chartered a global IT forensics enterprise to deal with the misfortune. This included getting the ransom amount that the hacker demanded, negotiating with the criminals and completing a forensic investigation.
After the IT forensics team got the hackers to go down from the first ransom demand of $540,0000 to $450,000, insurance coverage stepped in, paying the ransom, allowing the decrypting to move forward.
Negligence Coverage:
A patient was livid when she discovered a nurse employed at the doctor’s practice where she had been treated exposed her medical records. She accused the nurse of passing on her private medical records as well as her personal data to other people. Adding insult to injury, said the patient, was that the nurse altered the records to include false information meant to humiliate her.
The doctor’s office issued a statement that there is a standing policy of not allowing access and disclosure of patient information. Nonetheless, the nurse had crossed the lines of professional creed set down by the medical practice.
The matter was resolved by a 5 digit out-of-court settlement which the insurance company covered.
Ezine by M Wyzanski
Recent Comments