fbpx

“Cyber Insurance, do I need it?”

Posted on March 12, 2023

Who needs cyber insurance? Well, if you are a business owner of any size, the short answer to this question is most likely: You.

Anybody who has a website, uses e-mail, has computer systems, or handles data – in paper form or digital – requires cyber insurance to protect their business.

The CSO (from IDG) outline the following astonishing stats:

  1. In 2021, cybercriminals exploited the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in remote work, leading to a historic rise in cybercrime.
  2. The Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report noted 5,258 confirmed data breaches, with 86% being financially motivated.
  3. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) saw a 69% increase in complaints in 2020, with losses exceeding $4.1 billion.
  4. Ransomware attacks grew by over 40%, and email malware attacks were up by 600% compared to 2019, according to the Sift Q1 2021 Trust & Safety Index.
  5. DDoS attacks are becoming larger and more frequent, with Akamai reporting more attacks over 50 Gbps in 2021 than in all of 2019.
  6. The average ransom paid in ransomware attacks increased 171% from 2019 to 2020, with the highest ransom paid doubling from $5 million to $10 million.

Why should you consider Cyber Insurance?

You may have heard of some of the more high-profile cyber attacks in recent years, such as the “Wannacry” ransomware attack from May 2017, which spread worldwide, infecting 230,000 computers across 150 countries within one day. Another high-profile attack was seen in 2013 when The Associated Press’s Twitter account was hacked, and a fake tweet was issued stating that there had been an attack on the White House and that President Obama had been injured. Within 3 minutes, $100bn+ was erased from the Stock Exchange.

Cyber Hacking

Taking out a Cyber Insurance policy can offer you vital protections against cyber crime, which comes in many forms. Have you ever received a “phishing” e-mail where somebody sends you an e-mail to get you or a staff member to click a link and provide them with information? Are you certain that you will never make the mistake of thinking that one of these e-mails is genuine? More to the point, are you certain that no member of your staff will ever make that mistake? How confident are you that your Computer Systems will never be hacked and fall victim to ransomware? In such an event, all of the data on your system is liable to be stolen, and the hacker may demand a significant ransom to relinquish control of your systems back to you.

KennCo Cyber Insurance Policy Benefits

These events, as described above, could be catastrophic for a business of any size. A KennCo Cyber Insurance policy can offer you protection against these events, and can offer the following services and resources:

  • Computer Expert Services
  • Legal Services
  • Notification Services (e.g. The costs associated with notifying data subjects of breaches. These costs can be extensive)
  • Call Centre Services
  • Breach Resolution and Mitigation Services
  • Public Relations and Crisis Management Services
  • Assistance from the BBR Services Team (Beazley Breach Response Services) and access to educational and loss control information at no charge

The above services are in addition to covering damages and claims expenses resulting from data breaches and computer security failure, among other items.

Additional Cover Available

The above covers come as standard, however, additional covers are also available, such as:

  • Cover for a Cyber Extortion Payment
  • Business Interruption cover

(The above information on covers is an overview and is not exhaustive.)

If you don’t already have a Cyber Insurance policy, you do need it, as a cyber attack could threaten the very survival of your business. For more information and contact details, visit our Cyber Insurance page here!

 

Share this post: