The nature of cyber threats are evolving rapidly. As businesses become ever more reliant on technology, the risk of suffering a loss related to problems with computer systems, holding sensitive customer data such as names and addresses or own employees pay roll data continues to grow.
74% of small businesses have experienced a security breach in the last 12 months. Viruses don’t care what size business you are or where you are based. Hackers often target smaller firms as they believe they are less likely to have robust cyber defences in place.
The types of attacks themselves can be varied and include targeting a business’s customer data, intellectual property or is aimed at causing maximum disruption.
The good news is that the awareness of the threats is evolving too with a few large examples this year, and businesses finally understand the consequences of suffering a data breach.
The recent hack of telecommunications business Talk Talk has only increased awareness of such risks to all size businesses.
Modern cyber threats have 3 unique challenges:
1.They are intangible, so understanding the nature of the risk exposure is a real challenge for insurers, this is underpinned by a lack of trusted insight into the frequency and severity of attacks.
2.Cyber threats are systemic and a single attack can lead to a lot of consequences, so threats can quickly propagate throughout networks, even across geographical borders.
3.Cyber threats are still generally human driven, whereby those planning an attack will study the defences in front of them and try to circumvent them – so it is always a battle to stay one step ahead of the threat.
There is no doubt as to the severity of business interruption, financial and reputational impact caused by a cyber attack and how the ever expanding digital world risk of exposure is growing exponentially.
We are working closely with specialist Insurers who provide comprehensive insurance designed to protect your business in the unfortunate event of being subjected to an attack by a malicious hacker or even a data breach.
For a free no obligation cyber liability insurance quotation please contact Horner Blakey Insurance Brokers on 020 7929 0108.
