There’s a direct relationship between your business’ cyber insurance costs and level of IT/data security. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these costs have risen sharply due to the unprecedented increase in cyber-attacks. You can lower your cyber insurance premiums by implementing specific risk mitigation strategies. Keep reading to learn more.
Financial Losses Due to the Lack of Cyber Insurance
Different forms of cyber-attacks keep growing in number and sophistication, making cyber insurance a critical safety net for your business. If a cyber-attack occurs in your organization without proper coverage, you may incur losses such as:
- Ransomware fees: When cyber attackers lock you out of your IT network, they may demand ransom fees to let you back in. There’s no guarantee that you’ll recover your data and system access when you pay the fees.
- Legal fees: You may be sued in court by victims of a data breach incident in your organization, such as customers. The cost of defending yourself and compensatory damages can be financially crippling.
- Data recovery: Businesses may have to hire IT experts to help with data recovery after cyber breaches.
- Regulatory fines: You may be fined heavily if authorities determine that non-compliance contributed to the cyber breach.
6 Tips to Reduce Your Cyber Insurance Costs
Your cyber insurance costs partly depend on how safe your IT systems are from attacks. The more vulnerable you are, the higher your premiums might be. You can reduce the cost of cyber policies by adopting measures such as:
- Installing enterprise-grade antivirus: Consumer antimalware systems lack the advanced features necessary to sniff out sophisticated threats. Cutting-edge, enterprise-level antivirus software offers multiple technologies to detect and prevent different types of attacks. Besides scanning recognized virus signatures, they usually include AI-driven behavior analytics and live monitoring to spot and stop newer threats.
- Conducting regular penetration tests: Simulating cyber-attacks helps to expose and fix vulnerabilities before bad actors can exploit them. Your penetration tests should cover your entire digital footprint, including networks, endpoints, and software. Repair weaknesses and upgrade your systems as appropriate to fortify your cyber defenses.
- Investing in data recovery and backup: This measure enables operational continuity after data loss or a denial of service attack. Test your data recovery and backup regularly to ensure it works and is swift enough to minimize business interruption. Business operations that rely on data can stop when a cyber-attack occurs and find you without an alternative plan in place.
- Installing software fixes and updates regularly: Software makers keep releasing updates that fix recently discovered security flaws. If you don’t install each available patch, you leave your system exposed to potentially costly cyber-attacks. Your operating system and other software require regular patching to minimize the risk of data breaches.
- Securing your business website: Being online increases your IT system’s exposure to cyber-attacks. To protect your site, utilize a trustworthy website hosting service and ensure your site uses the latest encryption technology. Like all other components of your network, audit your site regularly, including payment systems and checkout to protect sensitive customer data.
- Conducting Cyber Security Awareness Training: Sponsor your employees to learn about cyber-security hygiene. Make sure they understand key concepts like strong passwords and multi-factor authentication. Your IT systems are safer when your employees know how to avoid falling victim to phishing emails.
With these risk mitigation measures in place, you can secure your IT systems and data and reduce your cyber insurance costs. Contact our team at Chambers & Company Insurance Brokers today for help finding a customized cyber insurance policy.