Cyber Insurance Has Never Been More Important

03 Apr Cyber Insurance Has Never Been More Important

As the crisis around coronavirus (COVID-19) takes hold, most organisations are telling their staff to work from home to protect themselves (and others) against illness. While working remotely is a much safer option in terms of health, it brings many challenges in terms of IT infrastructure and online security risks. Dangers to the organisation might include malware infection, unauthorised access, data security and staff using unsecured devices for their daily operations.

What you can do to mitigate risk and protect your company?

1. Update your systems – As people begin working remotely, it’s vital to ensure that all firewalls are up to date with the most recent security patches. Implementing multi-factor access for remote users is also a great step to add in. Regular back-ups, of course, essential during this time.
2. Educate your staff – Teaching your employees about safe cyber practices is an easy way to lessen the risk of any security issues. The Government has advice around staff awareness, which you will find here. Sadly, scams related to COVID-19 are on the rise, so ongoing messaging detailing emails and websites to avoid will help avoid any problems.
3. Take out cyber insurance – Insuring against online security breaches and similar events is crucial in modern business. Cyber risk insurance (or cyber liability insurance) is the product that you need to ask for and make sure the policy includes remote working.

What does Cyber Insurance cover?

• Forensic investigation. The first step after a security incident is to find out how the breach occurred, how to repair the damage and begin work on preventative measures for the future. Costs may cover hiring a third-party security firm as well as coordinating with police.
• Business losses. A broad term, but these might include monetary damages experienced by network downtime, interruption to the business that costs money, data recovery fees and even repairing reputation and crisis management.
• Privacy and notification. Notifying customers when their data has been compromised is now a legal requirement, and has costs associated with it.
• Lawsuits and extortion. On the more extreme end of things, legal expenses can rack up quickly if confidential information or intellectual property have been affected. Claims can be made against legal and regulatory fines. Your policy may also help with the costs of cyber extortion and ransomware.

At Eternity, we’re only too happy to talk through your concerns and match the right policy to your circumstances. For example, if cover for working remotely is essential in your business, we have a policy that covers IT infrastructure owned, leased, rented or licensed by the insured and used in conducting the insured’s business.

That means if a cyber event emanates from a computer or laptop or other device being used by the insured’s employees at home, the policy will respond to cover the cyber event for response costs, loss of profits and any potential litigation that may arise.

Now is the time to act when it comes to implementing cyber risk insurance. If you already have cover in place, our expert team are happy to review the policy to make sure you are covered for everything you need.

Website: eternityinsurance.com.au
Email: admin@eternityinsurance.com.au
Phone: 02 9261 1571