Cyber Insurance For Dummies

No company or organisation is immune to cyber security incidents.

In fact, 92% of Australian businesses have experienced damaging phishing attacks, and 80% have been hit by a ransomware attack at least once.

These attacks can cripple your business, costing you hundreds of thousands in revenue losses and reputational damage.

Unfortunately, only 32% of businesses have cyber insurance.

Given the rise of cyber incidents targeting Australian small businesses, if you want to ensure the success of your business, you need cyber insurance.

In this guide, we discuss the most common cyber crimes affecting Australian small businesses before deep-diving into cyber insurance and what it covers.

Most Common Cyber Crimes Affecting Small Businesses in Australia

Phishing

Phishing occurs when a fraudulent, seemingly legitimate email or link is sent to a recipient to trick them into sharing personal contact information, including bank card details.

In 2021, 92% of Australian companies experienced a successful phishing attack. This staggering number is up 53% from the previous year, highlighting the rise in cyberattacks across the board.

Ransomware

As the name suggests, ransomware is a type of malware designed to encrypt your data or key information and withhold access until a ransom is paid. 

‍80% of Australian companies have experienced ransomware attacks in 2021, a 12% increase year on year.

Distributed Denial-of-Service

During a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack (DDoS), a cyber criminal intentionally floods a company's system, such as a server, website, or any other network resource, with fake traffic. This overwhelming traffic triggers the system to deny access even to legitimate users such as your customers or employees.

While you might not be familiar with this type of attack, in 2021, Australia was the third most targeted country in the world! 

What Is Cyber Insurance?

Cyber insurance covers businesses for financial losses and costs incurred by cyber incidents, including the cyber crimes listed above. It's an important element of an effective risk management plan because it mitigates risk exposure by covering costs incurred by cyber events such as data recovery, ransom payments, or fines due to failure to maintain the confidentiality of data.

What Does Cyber Insurance Cover?

Cyber insurance usually covers:

Privacy Breach Notification And Crisis Management Costs

If your business is affected by a data breach, private or confidential data is exposed. In that scenario, you might be legally obliged to notify all clients impacted by the data breach.

Notifying your clients and implementing the necessary steps to protect their identity can cost you a lot of money and your reputation.

Cyber insurance will cover costs related to 24/7 incident response, notifying third parties about the data breach, performing forensic investigations to determine the extent of the breach, hiring public relations services to mitigate reputational harm, and providing identity monitoring and protection.

Privacy & Security Liability

Cyber insurance will cover your business if you fail to reasonably protect personal information and data or violate breach notification requirements. It will also protect you if you fail to implement adequate network security practices resulting in a DDoS attack or the transmission of malware to a third party.

Cyber Extortion

If your business is the victim of cyber extortion, your insurance can cover ransom payments, costs for hiring negotiators and mediating crisis management costs, and investigation costs.

Business Interruptions

Cyber insurance covers the loss of revenue incurred by a cyber incident and operating expenses due to the cyberattack.

Additionally, some cyber insurance policies also cover data recovery and system repair along with regulatory fines and defence costs in the event of a security or privacy breach.

Where To Find The Best Cyber Insurance For Your Business?

At upcover, we take cyber security very seriously. That's because we know how much damage it can do to small businesses like yours. That's why we've recently launched our Cyber & Privacy Liability Insurance which covers cyber extortion, cybercrime, data restoration costs, cyber incident response, and business interruption costs. 

Don't hesitate to contact us if you want to learn more!