.jpg?ext=.jpg)
12 Reasons to Invest in Cybersecurity Insurance
Most of the focus this fourth quarter of 2023 has been and will continue to be on CMMC and NIST SP 800-171 r3. The importance of looking at cybersecurity insurance policies for 2024 should not be overlooked, however, and now is the time to select your partner and apply. If you are not yet sold on the investment in cybersecurity insurance, here are twelve reasons it is a good idea to get yourself covered as soon as possible.
1. Access to legal assistance
Most cybersecurity insurance providers will be able to provide you with access to legal assistance. Your company will also have the added benefit of knowing the legal resources have been vetted. Most insurance companies will not recommend a resource to you that will result in their own reputation being damaged, after all. Legal involvement early on in a cyber incident is important because the head of the company will have attorney/client privilege during the investigation.
2. Access to forensic specialists
A cybersecurity insurance provider will be able to also provide your company with a vetted forensic specialist. These investigators will dissect the incident and let your company know where human error or flaws in the cybersecurity ecosystem may have led to the attack occurring.
3. Access to a strong PR firm
Dealing with the tangible costs of a cyber attack is one issue. Dealing with the aftermath, including brand damage, is something else. A good PR firm will not try to cover over the incident, but they will assist you in mapping a comeback and salvaging your brand with potential and existing customers.
4. Team augmentation
A good cybersecurity insurance provider will add to your team as everyone works hard to get the company back up and running. This enables your regular staff to keep day-to-day work flowing while additional team members work on the investigation and mitigation.
5. Cryptocurrency as needed
Many cyber attackers are asking for payment in cryptocurrency versus more traditional payment methods.If you are not sure how to access cryptocurrency, your insurance provider can help should you wish to pay a ransom for your data.
6. Negotiations
Negotiating with cyber attackers is rife with complexities. One of the most common is the language barrier. Negotiations are also delicate affairs where mistakes can be extraordinarily costly. Cybersecurity insurance agencies will help spearhead these negotiations.
7. Process formalization
When a cyber event occurs, panic is likely to follow. Panic leads to a lot of activity but not much planning, and very quickly a “too many cooks in the kitchen” scenario can begin to paralyze recovery and investigation procedures. A cybersecurity insurance firm will have a step-by-step process, which will lead to better results more quickly.
8. Cover third-party disputes
Sometimes after a cyber attack a customer or a vendor will allege that they were impacted by your outage. The resources a cybersecurity insurance firm can offer include coverage of these types of disputes. Make sure you have a clear understanding of the verbiage in your contract in regard to this specific issue.
9. Loss coverage
Of course, cybersecurity insurance does the obvious, which is covering damages from the attack. That includes any devices that need to be replaced as well as downtime caused by the incident.
10. SAT (Security Awareness Training)
It is in the best interest of the insurance company to help companies prevent an incident. To that end, most cybersecurity insurance providers will help with employee training, or they will provide resources that will make the training easier to present to all employees.
11. Incident response plan
You should also be able to rely on your cybersecurity insurance partner to help create a cyber incident response plan. An incident response plan is a key component of a cybersecurity effort, so, again, it is in the insurance company’s best interest to assist with this.
12. Available experience and expertise
Hopefully, the cyber attack your company has experienced is both the first and the last you’ll experience. As a business, this is something you do not want to gain experience with. A cybersecurity insurance company, on the other hand, has built its business on just this kind of situation. They have the experience and expertise to help you recover.
NIST/CMMC is soon going to be reality for many companies. Other industries have other cybersecurity controls coming down the rulemaking assembly line. Cybersecurity insurance is not mandatory per se, but while companies work on complying with standards, would it not be comforting to know that there is protection in case something happens in the meantime?
It is in your best interest to seek out a cybersecurity insurance policy for 2024. If you are interested in learning how the application overlaps with meeting other standards like ISO 27001 or NIST/CMMC, let us know and we can evaluate the application form against those other controls. Contact us today!