How to Prevent Cyber Attacks from Ruining Your Business
By: Robertson Insurance, Risk Management
Tags: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Insurance, Risk Management, Robertson Insurance

If you’re wondering how to prevent cyber attacks, you’re not alone. With 3.8 million records stolen every single day, a cyber attack occurs about every 39 seconds, and the Ponemon Institute cites the chances of experiencing a data breach to be as high as 1 in 4. When looking to take precautions against cybercrime — something even the World Economic Forum recommends for businesses — there are a few things you can do to ensure you know how to protect your company from cyber attacks, which we’ll cover below.

What Is Cybersecurity Risk?

Cyber risk is the fastest growing threat to businesses and organizations today. Ranked as a top 5 priority by 79% of global organizations, common cybersecurity risks include:

Data breaches

Phishing or social engineering attacks

IoT-based attacks (using WiFi-enabled devices)

Ransomware

Malware

DDos attacks (distributed denial-of-service attacks)

Internal employee attacks

There are a number of ways your company can fall victim to a cyber attack. Someone may have access to more company information or databases than they should, an unknowing employee may accidentally download malware, or a teammate may abuse their internal access for personal profit.

Any or all of these can occur in an organization, and the bigger the place of employment, the more cybersecurity risks present themselves. And with 2021 continuing to see an uptick in remote work, remote workers continue to be a target for cybercriminals. This is an unsettling statistic, given that 95% of cybersecurity breaches are already caused by internal human error.

How Cybersecurity Risk Management Can Help

Risk management is a concept that’s been around for as long as companies have had assets they wish to protect. Cybersecurity risk management acts like other insurances and applies it to the cyber world. By identifying your assets and vulnerabilities and applying solutions to make sure your company is adequately protected and prepared, cyber risk management helps you take the necessary precautions against cyber crime.

When looking for the right CRM, it’s helpful to use a risk analysis equation to calculate what you’ll need:

Breaking Down the Analysis

Your consequence of attack is how much of an impact a cyber attack will have on your business. For instance, if your business maintains sensitive personal information about your customer’s addresses and credit card info, there’s more at stake than just your business’ information (which is bad enough). The ramifications of a data breach stem far and wide, so it’s imperative you’re on guard.

Thelikelihood of an attack helps you understand how much of a target your business may be. Roughly 43% of all cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses, and it’s precisely these smaller organizations that are underprepared and overconfident in their limited cybersecurity capabilities.

While a risk analysis isn’t going to help you create the perfect plan to halt all future cyber attacks, it will help you define a more disciplined approach to setting up a security strategy, which will:

Help you take the necessary precautions against falling victim Help your recover as soon as possible if a cyber attack were to occur

Remember, any plan is better than no plan at all, and finding an effective cybersecurity risk management plan can save you a lot of time, money, and headaches.

Insurance Ensures a Healthy Strategy

When looking for general liability insurance to cover your business, we suggest something that protects sensitive data (like customer info). It’s also important to choose a plan that notifies customers about a breach in security and helps restore the affected customers immediately. We also recommend looking for a plan that offers cyber protection — not just a reactive plan. That way, you’re ensuring your business is as safe as possible from a virus or cyber attack from the get-go.

How to Prevent Cyber Attacks Targeting Your Business

While we certainly recommend the importance of something like general liability or cyber liability insurance, there are a few practical steps you can implement to keep your company safe from cyber attacks:

Ensure software and firmware is up to date

Make sure security software and firewalls are installed

Use a full-service Internet security system

Set up appropriate internal access for employees

Encrypt data and back it up

Hire ethical hackers to test your systems’ vulnerability

Educate your employees on responsible workplace cyber protocol

In the end, what matters most is that you’re taking the necessary precautions against cyber crime, and working to preserve the integrity of your business, your employees, and your customers. Finding a quality, comprehensive cyber risk management service and implementing some basic security protocols will help you understand how to prevent cyber attacks. It will also help your business from becoming another statistic.

Finding the right insurance to help you prevent cyberattacks can be tricky, and the digital sphere is costly if you don’t know how to navigate it. For some help in the process, contact us and our experienced insurance agents would love to sit down with you and see how we can help.