Cyber Attack: Is Your Company at Risk?

We have all seen the stories about companies that have had HUGE problems because they didn’t protect the personal information of their customers while in their control. In a well-known case, Target just agreed to pay $20,000,000 to settle a claim from a 2013 data breach.

Is your business at risk from a Cyber attack?

The answer is “yes” – if your company stores any personal data on your computer. When you think of it that way, many businesses store personal data. Personal Data can be medical information, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers … and more.

If your Company stores such information, what kind of exposure do you have?

Exposures generally fall into these two categories: Third Party Liability and First Party Expenses. Third Party Liability would be the damages typically associated with your company’s responsibility to protect certain private or confidential information. First Party Expenses would be expenses related to notification, credit monitoring, cyber investigation, crisis management and data privacy regulatory expenses.

Only large companies need cyber protection, right?

This is not the case. Even small businesses are at risk to a cyber attack. In fact, because most small businesses can’t afford the kind of protection needed, we are seeing a large increase in small business attacks because they are easier targets. The difference is that large businesses can usually survive the attack, small businesses often cannot.

How expensive is it to protect your business from a cyber attack?

The cost is often much less than you would expect. There are several different kinds of insurance solutions and pricing is predicated on how much personal data you have stored and how secure your system is.

If you are interested in seeing if you have a serious exposure and how to protect your business, e-mail me now, or give me a call. At the very least we can share some ideas on what you can do to minimize an attack to your business.