Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Tech Musing 2 - Insurance a Critical Component of Cyber Defense Strategy

http://www.informationsecuritybuzz.com/articles/insurance-a-critical-component-of-cyber-defence-strategy/

Cyber insurance is very important for businesses, but many businesses to not take part in or are just not aware of cyber insurance policies. Cyber Essentials is a checklist of the key things that organizations need to get right before they can be securely protected from cyber threats. Cyber insurance does pretty much exactly what it sounds like it would do, it insures your company from possible cyber security breaches to hopefully recoup some of the losses that might have occurred. This is very important because this will most likely be the fastest growing emerging insurance.

Currently only 11% of organizations have a cyber insurance policy, with 39% were planning on obtaining one in 2016. This growing phenomenon is going to benefits companies on both sides of the policies. The obvious benefit for the purchaser of the policy is the monetary insurance, but what's even more important in this is the Cyber Insurance companies make check to make sure that the company is up to date on all cyber security policies and programs, otherwise they wouldn't issue the policy. This is a step in the right direction, which is for all companies to have detailed cyber security policies and procedures. While this insurance might be widely common in 5 to 10 years, the most important part will be companies changing to make themselves more secure.

3 comments:

  1. I 100% agree with your notion that businesses need cyber insurance to preserve both their rights and their customers. I found an article that discusses the various important issues concerning cyber security and the ways to mitigate such threats nowadays. Further, it highlights some of the most recent cyber security attacks, and it analyzes the anticipated actions of hackers and their purposes. For instance, it is very costly for both service providers and affected customers to know that an attack led to the steeling of 80 million social security records at health insurer Anthem last year. The attacks can range from standard malwares to more complicated illegal entries of systems. Another target for attackers is the aging Internet infrastructure, which creates fertile ground for the attackers. However, Carl Leonard, a principle security analyst, who works for Raytheon’s Websense cybersecurity software unit, offers insight into serious potential threats that CIOs and CISOs are likely to deter. Leonard emphasized the importance of defending techniques that require administration to continuously update their software, maintain high security standards, hire CIOs, and get cyber insurance from a third party to detect any potential threats and risks.

    Responsibility
    Managing systems that contain tremendous amounts of data could be difficult, yet it is the responsibility of a system administrator to manage such a task. Even though Cyber insurance can protect businesses, system administration can internally reinforce businesses’ data. For illustration, nowadays security became a major focus and concentration of system administration because of the evolving technologies and advances in the Internet. Additionally, for many businesses their online presence may lead to enhance their position among competitors in the industry as well as potential customers. Therefore, system administration should enhance availability, accessibility, and information security of all the data pertaining to the business and stakeholders to ensure continuity and avoid any security threats and concerns.

    Reference
    5 biggest cybersecurity concerns facing CIOs, CISOs in 2016 | CIO. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cio.com/article/3023692/security/5-biggest-cybersecurity-concerns-facing-cios-cisos-in-2016.html

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  2. I can't help wonder how insurance will deal with ransomware, which is a growing threat to companies who get hacked and hold their data ransom for large sums. This is a growing problem everywhere - healthcare is one big industry facing this - but all companies do. If you have insurance, will they pay the ransom? If so, then it's definitely worth it. Anyone know?

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  3. So downsides to having insurance? Just because it's a growing industry doesn't mean it's effective or worth it.

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