The Problem with Cyber Liability & Data Breach:
Wouldn’t be nice to go back to the good old days where all of your firm’s information was within the four walls of your office or warehouse. You could protect it from the outside world with locks, keys, and guard dogs. Those days are gone. So are the days that you can look to your Business Owners coverage and Professional Liability coverage to protect you from today’s exposures to theft and extortion. These policies were designed with coverages that protect you for the good old days. And while you may find some coverage from these polices, you need coverages that specifically address the world of computers, the internet, and the cloud.
Data Breach incidents are increasing rapidly, with one data breach insurance response unit reporting a 60% increase in cases handled in 2015. Health care, financial services and higher education were most often hit. There were over 1800 incidents reported during the 1st 6 months of 2015 exposing over 228 million records.
Data Breach includes the unintended release of personal data such as dates of birth, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, credit card information, medical records, legal records, accounting records, tax records and/or other information entrusted to the organization. Release of this information by an organization can open up the organization to violation of HIPPA, Granm-Leach-Billey Act, or other state privacy legislation that can open up the firm to law suits for damages.
Ransomware incidents are also increasing rapidly. Ransomware involves the restriction of access to an infected computer system and demands that the user pay a ransom (money and/or complete a survey) to the malware criminal. In order for you not to report it to authorities, the ransomware may falsely claim that you have down something illegal with your computer and that you are being fined. Even if you pay the ransom, there is no guarantee that you will regain access to your computer system.