Things have changed, we are moving on, cybersecurity is advancing, every day we are witnessing new cyber threats, which have risen sharply during this pandemic season. If 2020 was bad, then 2021 and years ahead of us will be worse, therefore we need to cress examine ourselves and start thinking repeatedly about cyber insurance strategies. CISOs and all the leaders involved in organizations should start prioritizing how to make their institutions more secure by providing cyber insurance strategies that resonate well with what they do and where they are going.
The latest report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) indicated that cybercrime was a cause of a $3.5 billion loss in the year 2019, that is before the covid-19 strike. The figures also highlighted that nearly four organizations out of five acquired cybersecurity cover that protects them from cyber threats that continue to be a great challenge to many businesses. Cyber risk is growing and it’s the main cause of the need and increased demand for cyber insurance.
This figure is just a drop in an ocean, what if we include unrecorded cases, intrusions that happen without being noticed, data exposure, and other fallouts that have been witnessed when many employees were working from the comfort of their home, remotely. Cybersecurity insurance should not be taken lightly; this is because, when an organization experiences a successful attack, it may lead to great losses. The cost of incidents includes starting again to rebuild assets, loss of intellectual property, the public image being destroyed (Negative publicity) and all these can cause an organization to be fined or worse still legal action can be taken against the organization. Major software companies, security, and IT infrastructure providers’ fallout can cause breaches into government organizations’ environment. With such complications, an organization can find itself in a situation that it cannot control or even prevent, therefore there is a need to start thinking of security strategies that can be put in place to help in such scenarios.
It is so hard for cybersecurity risk to conceptualize or measure due to overlooking many factors in a business as it evolves. Therefore, there is a need for executives and stakeholders to start thinking about policies and to come up with new ways of dealing with the situation at the point of need. This is due to vast changes that are being witnessed in evolving technology world. There are complex issues that businesses continue to face like fire in a factory, uncontrollable natural disasters, or even products being recalled. Cybersecurity insurance is something that is being introduced to the industry and it is here with us to stay because cyber threats are here to stay as long as we are having the internet and all this advancement in technology. It is evolving on what to cover, and what not to cover, on what is high risk and what is low risk, and what to charge more and where to charge less. We need to continue having this conversation on how to reduce risk, limit incidents and losses, and lowing claims for customers and carriers.
CISOs can be able to make informed decisions when they put the following advice to practice about threats and cyber insurance:-
Insurance has two contradictory aspects or possible outcomes
It is true, cybersecurity covers can have two effects, it can start encouraging cyberattacks or can be necessary. This is the truth of the matter and we cannot avoid it, it is in cybercriminal’s minds that when they attack a company, they know they’ll be compensated. From reports, we can see that there is an increase in ransom demand, according to the research done by Coalition, a cyber-insurance provider. The demand has increased to claims that are involved.
It is even astonishing that criminals are compromising companies for them to get insurance coverage information so that when doing a ransomware demand, they know exactly what they want, and their demand is aligned to the policy details. In so doing, the probability of paying is high since the insurance policy equals the amount asked.
Defeat and conquer ransomware attacks
There need to be ahead of any hacker or even ransomware that may be used, by so doing, it makes risk manageable. An organization may have put security controls, but cybersecurity insurance comes in when all these fail. Ransomware makes an organization’s most sensitive information to be at risk, they can take access controls are even compromise the security of organizations. Experience lets us know that domain controllers are the high ground to defend an organization’s systems and network. It acts as the gateway for anything that is getting in and out of the organization’s network. Ransomware can be prevented through domain controllers. It is for the good of business to keep monitoring, doing penetration testing and vulnerability scanning to keep off any attack. In so doing, the entire network will be secure from ransomware incidents and lower insurance premiums too.
The nitty-gritty of insurance policy
Not every cyber insurance policy will cover everything that is concerning cybersecurity, some may not have coverage for some things. Therefore there is a need to know what the policy covers and what is not included in the policy. Some companies have come to an understanding that what they are claiming was not covered by the policy they took. Besides, cybersecurity is evolving and new things are coming up day by day, there is a need to review the cyber insurance policy after some time to make sure everything is covered that needs to be covered. Many companies have filed lawsuits to contest their insurance claims that deny claims due to the policy coverage. In all these, there is a lot to be done when it comes to what is covered because an incident can appear like an act of war, in such a scenario, companies can require that any exclusions impacting needed coverage can be removed.
Choose those to work with to defend the firm
Working with firms that have experience in reducing the likelihood of cybersecurity attacks will help organizations lower insurance premiums. Digital forensics and incident response firms are the best in partnering with different firms to provide such services. Also, employing managed detection and response and managed security service to help in searching networks all through day and night, find suspicious activities, and also launch effective mitigation and prevention measure is very beneficial.
Having all these measures, makes the insurers know that company is proactive in defense strategies, helping them to reduce insurance premiums. Even when worse happens DFIR partner can represent the company or its customer to come up with a deal in a bid to bring recovery and bring things to normal. This approach is one of the best where such partners help in recovering, assist in claims, and reducing insurance premiums.
It is a good thing that covid-19 happened and helped us to realize a lot is missing. Everything is now a reality, there is a need to think about cybersecurity more broadly and find more strategies to use to counter any attack and help in lowering any cost that comes with it. Every organization needs to be proactive and insurance firms do their part too. Partners need to keep their skills up. Everyone needs to work towards making cybersecurity under control.
