The world has gone digital. The traditional ways of conducting business have been replaced with online and more interactive forms. The number of transactions that occur online daily has increased by leaps and bounds. This puts everyone, who is either the sender or receiver of money at the risk of frauds and theft.
Not only financial transactions but the entire reputations of organisations are at stake. The different social media channels are the touchpoints between the customer and the organisation. These touchpoints make it imperative to have well-established security systems in place. While an organisation interacts with its customers or other stakeholders, it collects data about them. Acyber attack can pose a threat to the confidentiality of data.
To tackle these problems, one needs to install appropriate security layers to the information architecture. But there have been instances in the past where we come across news about data leaks. Hackers and other unethical individuals are devising new and new methods to compromise the integrity of these data and pose cyber threats.
Here come cyber insurance plans to your rescue!
What is cyber insurance?
Cyber insurance is a specialised type of insurance policy that protects the business entities and individuals from the financial risk relating to a data breach or risks that relate to Information Technology Infrastructure and activities. This concept of cyber insurance started to gain prominence in the early 2000s with the increase in internet reach to different parts of the globe. Also, cyber attacks have no fixed geographic location as it all happens on a virtual space leaving no trace of any attack.
Do you need cyber insurance?
If you ask this question to yourself, most likely it would be a yes. As the smartphone in our pockets is gaining more and more data about our vital information like personal data along with passwords to financial data, it becomes essential to buy one. Although you might be practising all possible safety measures to protect and safeguard your data, you don’t want to be crying over spilt milk. So why not just buy one.
What does cyber insurance coverage include?
The extent of your cyber insurance plan varies among the different insurance companies that offer this product. Below listed are some of the common types of costs included in your cyber insurance coverage.
- Cost of investigation: After a cyber-attack takes place, it is investigated for the reasons. Some of the reasons are as follows-
- What damage has occurred?
- How can we repair the damage?
- Is there any significant data loss?
- Does the attack pose a threat to the organisation going forward?
- How can it be prevented in the future?
- Involving the services of a security firm to enforce data protection.
- Losses to the business entities: Any monetary loss to your business can be avoided by availing a cyber insurance plan. Here, the financial loss due to downtime of your network or interruption of business, data loss and costs to manage these risks are covered by your insurance policy.
- Identity Theft: When a cybercriminal gets unauthorised access to your personal information which is used to commit crimes in your name, cyber liability insurance will help you to safeguard yourself. An insurance cover will help in handling the defence and costs related to prosecution.
- Phishing and Email spoofing: A more common occurrence of cybercrime not limited to targeting individuals is phishing and email spoofing. These illicit ways are used to gain access to sensitive information like your bank credentials by creating similar or hoax websites. Unaware individuals end up sharing this information posing a financial risk. A cyber insurance plan will help protect against these financial setbacks that otherwise will cost an entire life’s savings.
Apart from those mentioned above, malware attacks, cyber extortion, IT theft loss and media liability are a few other areas that are covered by your cyber liability insurance.
In conclusion, it is always prudent to opt for a cyber insurance cover. Assuming you possess what cyber-criminals want rather than thinking that you don’t will be a conservative approach to ensure the protection of critical information. Explore general insurance plans to secure yourself & your loved ones from any & all issues surrounding health, motor, home, travel and other aspects.