What is Cyber Insurance?
Cyber attacks have emerged as a serious threat for Australian businesses. The consequences of an attack can be severe, resulting in destruction of assets and reputational damage.
Most stories in the media today address the type of data loss that impacts people on a personal level: credit card numbers, medical records, birth dates, ID/passport numbers and other private personal information. However, we should also be mindful of the impact from the loss of corporate data and information such as intellectual property and proprietary information, which in the hands of a competitor or even an extortionist can severely disadvantage business.
Cyber insurance can help organisations get back to business after a cyber attack or a data breach. Cyber insurance provides cover for liability and expenses a business may incur arising out of unauthorised use of, or unauthorised access to, physical and electronic data or software within an organisations computer network or business.
While technology makes the economy more efficient, it opens up opportunities for hackers, criminals and malicious acts by known people, such as disgruntled employees. This increases the risk of cyber attacks. Businesses increasingly rely on the interconnectivity and convenience of hardware, data storage, cloud solutions and managing data.
This increased dependency creates an environment where predicting and preventing potential cyber attacks is difficult
The need for Cyber insurance – the Cyber threat
A cyber event can be defined as any identified effort directed towards access to, infiltration of, manipulation of, or impairment to the integrity, confidentiality, security or availability of data. The possibility of a malicious attempt to damage or disrupt a computer network or system
Global infrastructure and services have been largely transferred to the Internet. The future is digital. A hyper connected world that is critically dependent on technology. This makes strong cyber security capability crucial to navigating the associated risks and opportunities ahead. The increased dependence on technology, combined with the evolving complexity and sophistication of cyber security threats, increases the level of vulnerability – at a national, organisational and individual level.