However, insurers cannot predict what the damage might be from court litigation. What they suspect, based on this year's eBay credit card hack, is that court awards could be huge. To mitigate their exposure to this great unknown, most insurers team with third-party risk management companies to assess your Web security before they will insure you. Your business must score better than 60 percent or contract with a Net Secure risk management provider to shore up your perimeter. You can call it the ethical hack.
Nobody expects small or even mid-size companies to love the idea of insuring their Web site.
For most, it's a costly solution to a problem they aren't convinced they have. Freeman says the cost of working with a risk management provider to get Web insurance is a bargain compared to hiring an Information Services manager and building the infrastructure yourself. Security is only one of the risks of cyberspace, but it's a biggie and it just doesn't go away by waving a magic wand of technology. These are business risks and they need to be managed as such. If you have multiple stores, your Web site has just become your largest store.