A wake up call on cyber risk!
According to PwC, 97% of UK CEOs say their organisation is currently addressing cyber security breaches. Last year, we encountered more cyber issues than ever before too so we’ve decided to partner up with award-winning global financial consultancy and insurance broker Jelf to provide our clients with more knowledge and protection in the digital age.
Below we have collated some of their blog posts to give you an insight into cyber liability, insurance and the digital landscape for businesses big and small.
Don’t think you’re at risk? Remember, the following have been hacked in the past 2 years: HMRC, The White House, Experian, Yahoo to name a few but smaller businesses are at an increasing risk too.
A recent article in BRINK revealed that an increasing number of SMEs are realising that no company is too small be victimised by cyber scams and hackers. These findings were detailed in a recent report published by Zurich. (Read more here: SMEs waking up to the risky reality of cyber)
No company, big or small, is immune to a data breach. It’s easy to think as a smaller business, that a data breach will only happen to larger business. Yet studies show that in fact, nearly 3 out of 4 of data breaches were at companies with 100 or fewer employees.
A data breach is an incident where personal data is accessed and/or stolen by an unauthorised individual. This could include such things as national insurance numbers, medical information as well as biometric records and of course bank account details. (Read more here: Understanding a data breach and why you should)
The problem is the costs of a breach can quickly escalate; the UK Government conducted a study into cyber security breaches finding that the average cost incurred was £36,500, the most costly of these being £3 million. And this does not include the lasting effect of negative PR should the incident become public. (Read more here: How expensive is a cyber-attack?)
Putting in place a breach management plan will make sure you have the right procedures in place in case a cyber-attack happens. Unfortunately in today’s technology filled world, it’s almost not if, but when, with statistics showing 74% of small businesses and 90% of major businesses had experienced a data security breach in 2014*. To give you the best chance of surviving a cyber-attack, it’s important to understand the risks and the best protection for your business. (Read more here: Cyber liability: are you at risk? )
2015 saw an almost 170 per cent increase in the number of businesses across the globe that reported being the target of ransomware scams, according to a report from Intel Security. And UK businesses are among some of the most targeted in Europe. In fact security firm Bitdefender identified that last year the UK received nearly 1 in 10 of all ransomware-infected emails globally (Read more here: Ransomware scams on the increase)
Case study: Fraudsters obtain HMRC tax payers information
If you would like to find out more about Cyber Insurance and what it covers, please contact with Darren Butcher, Regional Sales Director at Jelf Insurance Brokers.
