Cyber Insurance
What is Cyber Insurance?
During the 2020-21 financial year, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) observed self-reported losses from cybercrime in Australia totalling a staggering $33 billion. Most businesses rely on technology to some extent, which means they’re exposed to increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals. According to the ACSC, an average of 164 cybercrime reports are made by Australians every day – that's about one report every 10 minutes.
Cyber Insurance covers the physical loss or damage to information, IT systems and networks. It can also cover loss of profits to be business, caused by the introduction of malware, extortion or hacking, as well as management of the incident itself.
Why is Cyber Insurance important?
Businesses must have guards against hackers and other types of cyber breaches. What’s more, because of stricter data privacy laws, they’re increasingly required to ensure personal information is secure. A breach will be investigated and require costly actions, including contacting hundreds or thousands of customers. There’s also the potential for hefty fines and penalties.
It’s easier to buy an insurance cover that protects your main cyber-related risks of damage to your systems and recovery, rather than trying to find specialist consultants to rebuild systems and keep the business operating. Cyber Insurance policies also generally include significant support with managing the incident, which can be essential when faced with reputational damage or regulatory enforcement.
What does Cyber Insurance cover?
There is a wide range of Cyber Insurance available. While all policies cover liability to third parties for passing on viruses, some also cover damage to your own networks.
Additional sections that we recommend considering include:
- incident response – specialists to identify the issue and repair
- lost income and additional costs related to the incident
- data recovery and restoration
- consumer notification costs and ongoing monitoring costs
- legal defence costs
- cyber extortion management and fees
- crisis and PR management of the incident
- management of communications with regulators.
Managing cyber risks to your business
Cyber Insurance is a key part of your management of cyber incidents and attacks. Many resources are available to help minimise the likelihood of a successful attack, including the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
The top 3 things that you can do easily are:
- Update your devices to protect information.
- Set up multi-factor authentication for logging on.
- Back up your data real-time of at least daily.