Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Are You Cyber-Savvy?
It’s October—Cybersecurity Awareness Month! This is the perfect time to assess your level of cybersecurity. Our lives are becoming increasingly digital, making it crucial to understand the potential threats and how to protect yourself against them. Here’s what you need to do to secure yourself against these threats:
The first step to effective cybersecurity practice is to understand Phishing Attempts – an attempt to steal important and sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, bank account information, etc. Here’s what a Phishing Attempt can look like:
Your parcel delivery is delayed due to inaccurate address information – click on this link to update your address. Try your best to not click on any such links. Just recently, a music instrument retailer experienced a cybersecurity breach when an employee accidentally clicked on a malware link. This resulted in a virus being downloaded automatically onto the company server, encrypting all their data. Just soon enough, the employee then received an email demanding a ransom of $50,000 in Bitcoin, threatening that if the payment was not made within 48 hours – the data would be lost forever, putting almost 2,000 customers in jeopardy with their names, addresses, phone numbers and credit card details at risk – which meant, customer trust was seriously at stake.
The financial impact was disturbing, and here are the details:
- Incident Response: $5,500
- Notification Costs: $6,860
- Legal Fees: $4,000
- Business Interruption: $31,325
- Data Recovery: $10,100
- Ransom Payment: $50,000
- Damage to Computer and Hardware Systems: $12,050
With a staggering total cost of $121,065.
The retailer got lucky that he had invested in a standalone cyber insurance policy. Once they discovered the breach, they immediately contacted their insurance company’s cyber response team. Here, the retailer was immediately assigned a ‘breach coach’, who was able to evaluate the situation, assess any damage to electronic hardware, as well as determine if paying the ransom was essential. Luckily, the insurance company confirmed coverage and assisted in opening the claim to mitigate the effects of business interruption. As per thorough evaluation, it was decided that paying the ransom was the quickest way to solve the unfortunate occurrence, therefore, the insurance company promptly paid the ransom, enabling the retailer to regain access to encrypted records – minimizing downtime and enabling the retailer to resume normal operations.
This incident highlights the crucial need for strong cybersecurity awareness and preparedness. The key lessons to learn from this example are to educate employees and invest in their training so that they can identify phishing attempts and work safely online. Moreover, it also proves how important it is to have a secure backup that is protected against encryption threats. Had this retailer had backup, he wouldn’t have needed to pay the ransom, but a lot was at risk. Lastly, what truly saved him was his robust cyber insurance. His insurance took the entire situation into its hands and sorted all the staggering costs for him. If he were to pay the ransom himself and not through his insurance, he would have had to sell out all his assets just to get through this situation.
A cyber-attack can also happen by hacking your account and the hacker taking control of your entire database. This is why it’s essential to take another few basic and easy steps to prevent this from happening.
Have you ever thought of what a strong password is? Perhaps the worst choice is just “password” or “123456” – therefore, to create a strong password, use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols, for example, “T3st!nG1234!” If you still can’t figure out the best password for yourself, try using a password manager to help you out with it.
Once you’ve set a strong password for yourself, move on to Multi-Factor Authentication. This adds an extra layer of security – requiring two or more verification methods to access your accounts; making it a challenge for anyone trying to access your account.
In the final two steps, ensure your software is regularly updated. These updates contain security patches that can protect you against vulnerabilities. At the same time, ensure your data is backed up regularly as well – alongside ensuring that these backups are secure so that in case your data is subjected to threat, you know that your client’s data is safe.
Celebrating Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it is crucial to reflect on our habits as a team and to review our knowledge. Being aware of and promoting cybersecurity awareness can help us protect ourselves and contribute to a safer digital community.
Get a robust plan for Cyber Insurance with Professional Liability Insurance Group! With over 27 years of experience, we offer you complete peace of mind – We Are Here to Protect You Better!
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