What Trends Are Impacting Cyber Liability Claims?
We hear about data constantly
Who has it, who’s using it, and who is capturing it: if you’re a business that deals with customers, you likely store some form of their data. Whether you’re a small retail shop that has customer emails, or a hospital with extremely sensitive medical records, you have data that needs to be protected.
Depending on what data you have – and how much – the steps you take to protect it may be as simple as having encrypted storage of your files. But as it scales, those steps can include many more layers of security, including multifactor authentication, user privilege management, and high-level monitoring. But even with security in place, hacking and human error can lead to incidents. And once an incident occurs, it is your response that is critical. Insurance should be part of that response, and let’s take a look at where some of the claim trends are occurring.
Automated Cyberattacks
You’ve heard about automation for all sorts of industries and tasks, so it only makes sense that cyber criminals would automate as well. “Crimeware” is the name for this form of automated attack, and it is used in a wide array of activities. Stealing passwords, capturing keystrokes, redirecting websites to malicious websites – these are all activities being automated perpetrate identity theft through social engineering or stealth.
Social Engineering
In what is perhaps the evolution of scams that have been around forever, social engineering is the name for manipulation or deceit that cybercriminals use to gain access to sensitive information. Phishing is the most commonly known form of this, but hackers have elevated scams to new levels with coordinated email, text, and even phone scams that seem to validate the information they’re requesting. For smaller businesses, attempts to request money by wire or digital currency are constantly occurring.
Prolonged Cyberattacks
Hackers are now using methods called heavy “campaigns” to try and find vulnerabilities over time. One such method, A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack occurs when multiple systems flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system, usually one or more web servers. A DDoS attack uses more than one unique IP address or machines, often from thousands of hosts infected with malware.
Coverage
In addition to your businesses plan for securing data, having the right insurance in place can help protect you and your customers. Some businesses may only need an endorsement to their general liability policy to add appropriate cyber coverage, but for many, a standalone cyber policy is needed.
Let us discuss the data your business stores and help you determine what policy option might be right for your business’s needs.