We all watched in horror last week as the media and politicians ran around broadcasting stories and passing comment on a matter that resembled a plot from a Die Hard movie, and about which many of them seemed unqualified to comment.
The vulnerability surrounding the computer systems of what clearly ranges from the largest organisation to the smallest business seems to be uniform as the experience of Malware on the NHS last week has been suffered by small businesses with whom we deal. This type of crime is indiscriminate with the biggest vulnerability of businesses being the attitude of “this will never happen to us”. These can obviously be “famous last words” following an attack.
The new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) come into force across Europe on 25th May 2018 and whilst they will have an effect on the measures that businesses will need to undertake in relation to restitution following a data loss, we believe they are only a small part of the risks from cyber criminals. We understand that the main issues faced by businesses in the UK seem to be the prevention of fraud, including deception involving funds being transferred erroneously, and as we saw last week with the NHS, cleaning up the mess following the deployment of Malware or a ransomware attack.
This was echoed, ironically, by one of our main insurance partners in the area of Cyber insurance, CFC. They spoke at the British Insurance Brokers Association Conference on the 10th and 11th May, a day ahead of the NHS attack, and highlighted the main threats to business and the reasons why Cyber insurance should be considered as part of the suite of covers that a business considers when arranging their insurance portfolio. In future it may have the profile of the standard Property insurance or Employers or Public Liability, but as the risks are relatively new, this is not currently the case.
CFC have however done much research into this area and have produced a guide for the ten main reasons why a business should consider insuring against Cyber risks, which can be accessed by clicking here.
Quotations for this class of business are relatively easy to obtain and through our team at MOFS, we can usually provide indications within 24 hours of receipt of very basic information such as your trade or business and turnover. If however you can provide additional information regarding your procedures to prevent cyber losses, it can have a beneficial impact on the terms . If you would like to find out how cost effective Cyber insurance can be in terms of providing additional protection for your business, click here to email the team.
