The managed service professionals at WareGeeks Solutions tell their clients, “It’s not a matter of if – but a matter of when – your business will suffer a data breach or a cyberattack. National and international hackers are having a field day – still – with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and with lax cybersecurity measures businesses are taking. We have tips on how to prevent a cyberattack and why cyber insurance might make sense.

Your business can take steps and implement procedures to help ensure it doesn’t get hacked. Sometimes, though even with the most vigilant safety measures, it is the human factor that allows a hacker that tiny sliver of opportunity and that hacker will make the most of that opportunity and wreak havoc on your data.

While cyber insurance may not be able to completely make you whole or repair the reputation your organization suffers when it is hacked and client data is misappropriated, it could help you get up and running.

How To Prevent A Cyberattack: 12 Tips

If you are thinking, “since I will probably be breached, why should I invest in cyber insurance?” This is the same thinking about homeowners or vehicle insurance – you certainly don’t plan to get into an accident or have a fire at your home, but if the worst happens, aren’t you glad you have insurance in place to repair your car or home?

Cyber insurance policies and coverage are valuable and viable for all types of business operations and most data types. What are the top three reasons for your business to make an investment in cyber insurance?

how to prevent a cyberattack
  1. Cybercriminals aren’t as concerned with the type of data they collect as long as they are collecting something and wreaking havoc on your operations. These industries are most prone to hacks: Payment card industry, 14%; protected health info, 15%; critical data files, 15%; personally identifiable information, 26%; and all other data, 30%. Personally identifiable information includes birthdates, bank accounts, credit card information, Social Security Numbers and more. Does your business gather and store any of that info? There is a black market for stolen data and it is very lucrative for the hacker.
  2. Without cyber insurance, recovering from the attack can be costly – so costly your business may never recover. It’s estimated that one cybersecurity incident could cost a company in the low hundreds of thousands to the millions of dollars. The costs include responding to the incident, hiring a firm to perform a forensic analysis to determine the extent of the breach. In 2018, the average cost of a data breach was $605,000; can your business afford that and recover from it? Those costs include: legal defense and legal settlements, crisis management and other related expenses including reputation management. The cost for the loss of business because of the breach is exponentially higher.
  3. As mentioned, there is hardly an industry that isn’t ripe for a cybercrime to be perpetrated against it. A cybercriminal finds just as much value in the attack on a small business as they do on a larger one. Smaller businesses are typically easier for them to hack into and that means they could hack into a larger number. A cyber criminal study found that close to 50% of the time, cyber criminals targeted businesses with less than $50 million annual revenue.

Smaller companies are more vulnerable to a hacker because the criminal assumes the small company has a lower threshold of preventive and protective measures and that makes their job easier.

Startling statistic: The National Cyber Security Alliance found, “one in five small businesses fall victim to cybercrimes and of those, 60% will go out of business within six months.”

Cybercrimes impact all businesses across all industries. The way to protect your business, your reputation, your client data and keeping your doors open include:

  1. Training your staff to recognize phishing, social engineering and spoofing scams. Believe us when we say, the cyber criminals are making it harder and harder for the layperson to distinguish a fraudulent email or attachment than from a legitimate one. Again, the human factor comes into play and that is what can inadvertently open the door to your company’s financial ruin.
  2. Put AI (artificial intelligence) into place in your IT department. Don’t rely on subtle nuances to get past your IT team because “Joe does it that way but Bob does it this way.” By the time the team realizes there is an issue, the hackers have likely already been in. AI doesn’t distinguish between staff and how they work – the AI recognizes subtle changes when they occur.
  3. Implement and deploy the following tools, including: incident response plan assessments, improved hardware and software, cybersecurity awareness training (ongoing) for employees, an audit by an outside managed service provider who will act as a consultant to your team.

Being proactive in the assessments of cybersecurity for your business include: strengthening your network, identifying weaknesses and opportunities for improved cybersecurity.

For some business owners, when they make the decision to invest in cyber insurance they will be required to bring in an outside professional to conduct an audit of current infrastructure and make recommendations to ensure it is able to purchase a policy.

What will a cybersecurity insurance policy cover?

  1. Data privacy liability
  2. Extra expense coverage
  3. Network security liability
  4. Ransomware and cyber-extortion coverage
  5. Business interruption insurance  
  6. Data asset protection

Be proactive in ALL the cybersecurity aspects of your business.

WareGeeks Solutions is a Roselle, New Jersey-based full-service IT Solutions and Service Provider.
We specialize in Data Protection, specifically Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) and Cyber Security. We work with all small, medium, and large companies. We conduct a multi-level risk analysis that identifies processes procedures and/or technology that stifle productivity with oppressive layers of complexity. If you have IT or security questions contact Seth at WareGeeks Solutions. For information or a consultation, call (877) 653-7146, or email us at 
info@waregeeks.comwww.waregeeks.com