You’ve all seen the news regarding Cyber Security and the significant losses that businesses are exposed to on a daily basis. While Anthem, Target, Sony and thousands of other companies have been breached in recent years, it is not just the big companies that are impacted. According to a recent study of 1500+ breaches, 72 percent of breaches occur in companies with less than 100 employees.
Cyber risk is not simply an IT department issue, as it involves the risk of financial loss, business disruption, reputation damage, and various unanticipated extra expense.
This is part 1 of our 3 part series on Cyber Risk to help provide information and direction on how to evaluate your potential business exposure, and options for your next steps.
- Part 1: Do You Have a Cyber Liability Exposure?
- Part 2: What Do Cyber Policies Cover?
- Part 3: What Should You Do Next?
Even the best IT departments with sophisticated firewalls and virus protection can still be breached and cause extensive losses.
Typically the causes of loss can be grouped into four main areas:
1. Misdirected emails
- Human error leading to inadvertent disclosure of business sensitive information
2. Physical loss of records
- Theft of digital assets, including customer lists, business trade secrets and other electronic business assets
3. Portable devices
- Lost/stolen smartphones and laptops
4. Hackers
- Damage to data records and associated costs as well as the introduction of malware
Please take a moment and review these set of questions that may help you explore your Cyber Liability exposure. Please feel free to reach out should you have any questions regarding this information and would like to discuss further, or post in the comments section below.
