How prepared is your small or medium business (SMB) to withstand a major cyberattack or data breach? Do you have the digital infrastructure to stymie such an intrusion? Do you have the resources available to recover from an especially malicious attack?
If you're unsure about any of these questions, you absolutely must invest in cyber liability insurance. It's a common misconception that SMBs are relatively safe from cyberattacks due to their size. "Our business is too small to be targeted by hackers, You might say. "Besides, we don't have anything to hide anyway. Âù
This blind spot opens SMBs to a world of hurt. Hackers are more likely to attack SMBs because small companies rarely have the resources and infrastructure to thwart a cyber breach.
Further, even if your organization doesn't cache top-secret documents, this doesn't mean you're safe from harm. Most cyber crooks are primarily interested in personal and financial information they can sell on the dark web, or leverage for identity theft. Examples include names, addresses, Social Security numbers, medical records, credit card numbers, email addresses, passwords and the like. If you have employees, clients, customers or partners, you likely have this kind of information stored on your network.
Once the cat is out of the bag, retrieving this data isn't cheap. The Ponemon Institute estimates recovering each stolen record costs roughly $217. Depending on how many records were compromised, the expenses can really add up.
Of course, not all attacks are focused on pilfering data. Sometimes hackers prefer to turn a quick buck through cyber extortion. For instance, a cybercriminal might hit your network with a ransomware attack before requesting compensation to lift the plague from your organization. Hackers are usually careful to set their blackmail fee lower than the cost losses. However, you can still expect to pay thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency.
Similarly, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks will prevent legitimate traffic from reaching your site or service by flooding your network with phony web requests until it crashes. As you can imagine, this is harmful to your reputation and your bottom line. But the troubles don't stop there. DDoS attacks are also used as smoke screens to obscure a secondary attack, such as a data breach or malware upload.
Luckily, there are a few techniques that can help prevent hackers from getting the better of your small business:
Follow smart password protocols, including unique passphrases or leveraging a password manager
Build a culture of cybersecurity in your office by hosting routine cyber defense training sessions.
Hire an in-house IT team or external defense agency to monitor your network for suspicious activity.
Invest in a corporate firewall, virtual private network (VPN) and antivirus software for your small business.
However, even with all these safeguards, private organizations still fall victim to hackers and data breach. In the end, it doesn't make sense to forgo cyber liability insurance. It's a simple and affordable option to a costly and deleterious security problem. Do the right thing and visit CyberPolicy for your free cyber insurance quote today!
