It seems no matter how many stories we read or hear about cyber-crime attacks and data breaches, businesses still hold the view it will happen to someone else’s business, and never our own. Yet the list of companies whose data security has been breached reads like a Who’s Who of big names – Home Depot, Sony, Target and Anthem Insurance in the USA and closer to home, K-Mart, David Jones, Aussie Farmers Direct, Aussie Travel Cover, Queensland TAFE and perhaps most infamously, Ashley Madison. If anyone can afford cyber security, it should be these brands.
A cyber attack will negatively impact on your brand image and credibility, resulting in financial or market share loss. It takes a cyber risk expert to help you understand all of your business vulnerabilities. Protect your business today by calling Emjay Insurance Brokers (02) 9796 0400.
The Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report 2017, released in February 2017 reported that a staggering 53% of companies in the US, UK and Germany were ill-prepared to deal with cyber attacks with the global cost of cybercrime estimated to be as much as USD 450 billion. In Australia the risks to business are as high as one in five businesses being likely to suffer a cyber-crime attack in the next two years.1
The implications are far reaching and beyond the inconvenience of having the office email down for a couple of days, is the very real possibility of identity theft for millions of customers in company databases across Australian businesses, costing money, increasing exposure to litigation and creating irreparable damage to a company’s brand and reputation.
In the healthcare space, both private health information and customer financial data can prove very attractive to hackers, as can access to credit card and other personal customer details in the retail sector. Educational institutions have the additional risk of first and third party intellectual property theft as well as financial data exposure. In all cases, identity theft is a very real risk. The list of vulnerable businesses exposed to hacking, is as big as the number of industries using the internet, being networked or storing data in the cloud. In other words, everyone!
While there are many steps companies can take to mitigate the risks such as rigid IT policies, firewalls, end-to-end encryption, secure back-ups POS security and strong password & IT access policies, no cyber security company will ever give an iron clad guarantee that a business will not suffer a breach after all these measures are in place.
Companies should seek to understand the likelihood of their business being targeted, assess the overall cyber risk and mitigate accordingly with cyber security protocols, but should also balance that action with a risk transfer solution, a cyber insurance policy, which can protect material and financial loss, but also cover businesses for legal liability and reputation management.
To understand the cyber-crime risk facing your business, contact Emjay Insurance whose expert brokers can provide you with the advice and services to ensure your business is managing the risk from cyber incidents, and is adequately insured and protected should the worst happen. Contact us on (02) 9796 0400 to discuss your needs or email us at info@emjayib.com.au
1 Norton Cyber Security Insights Report Australia