Cyber threats – it’s time to batten down the hatches

By Richard Foster – Cyber Risk Insurance Broker at IC Insurance

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month and fittingly barely a day seems to go by without this issue hitting the headlines.

In the maelstrom of buzzwords, rapid development, speculation, and, at times almost panic, it can be difficult to focus on those reasonable actions that we as individuals and organisations can adopt to maintain a reasonable level of protection against threats without too much detriment to our day-to-day operations.

Here are some simple solutions to help you batten down the hatches without breaking the bank or grinding the business to a halt:

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) – Have this in place for all vital business resources – online email, remote access, Cloud Storage, CRM systems, banking applications etc. Think of this as the steering wheel lock for your digital activity.
• Backups – Are you backing up business critical data? How often? More than one medium or location? Have backups been tested recently to ensure data can be restored? Losing a day’s work is an inconvenience, losing a year’s work is a catastrophe.
• Disaster Recovery Plan/Business Continuity Plan (DRP/BCP) – Do you have a plan for a Cyber Event? Has it been reviewed recently? Do Senior Leaders understand their roles? Has it been practised? Is it available ‘offline’?
• Cyber Insurance – Do you have a comprehensive cyber insurance policy? Are cover limits still suitable? Have you read it and do you understand it? Cyber policies can come with onerous conditions – are you confident you comply with them all? Do you have a copy available ‘offline’ should systems go down? The insurer’s Incident Response team is often one of the first calls you will need to make.
• Patching – Often the way a business is compromised is to be operating a system that is not up to date. Patching improves performance and security so should be carried out automatically ideally, and regularly at a minimum.
• Staff Awareness and Training – People are often the ‘weakest link’ in a business’s Cyber Security – when was the last time staff were trained on, for example, spotting a Phishing email or avoiding malicious links? It’s also a good idea to adopt an approach similar to MFA for financial transactions; have two people sign off on any large or irregular payments and nurture a risk conscious culture from the top down.

In the space of just a few years, cyber has gone from being little known or discussed, to being one of the top two or three risks faced by most of our clients.

At IC Insurance we are increasingly investing in our Cyber Risk expertise. If you aren’t confident that you have this under control, or would just like a second opinion, we are always happy to have a no-obligation conversation to see how we can help.

We are a team of experienced insurance brokers working together with our customers to understand and fulfil their insurance needs.

Based in Bolton, our story began in 2009, initially helping people with their life insurance and financial service insurance needs, later providing a service to individuals and companies to manage their personal and business insurance.

• To discuss any issues raised by this article please contact me or one of my colleagues on 01204 565 600