Cyber Insurance – The risks whilst working from home

In light of recent events an unprecedented number of employees will now be working from home and may continue to in the future. Now more than ever it is very important to consider the impact of a cyber attack upon our business.

Employees may be using company supplied laptops or working from personally owned computers that are less protected with firewalls or antivirus software.

There are many different ways in which our modern computer systems can be attacked, both remotely and physically and the consequences can be devastating. Not least because the government agencies tasked with keeping our data safe can impose significant fines on a business whose data is found to have been leaked under the GDPR regulations.

Cyber Insurance is more than just a piece of paper and it is important to understand how it protects you as a business, one of the most significant but least understood benefits is the importance of a rapid response and access to an expert in an emergency. If a pipe bursts in your home or office, most of us can find the stopcock and call a plumber but if your systems have been compromised it is harder to find the right experts to stop your data being abused, held to ransom or to find a way to turn your systems back on without causing more harm.
Early intervention in the public domain can mean the difference between thousands of pounds of fines and a reputation trashed in the media, or a business who has been unjustly attacked and done everything in their power to protect their innocent customers.

Protecting your customers data is one element of this type of cover, but it is also possible to attack your business remotely in a number of creative but equally devastating ways. A denial of service attack can slow any computer connected to your network or your system to a crawl and cause hours of stress and lost trading. There are methods of inserting programs into your network remotely that can cause vital hardware to mismanage itself, overheat and shut down or even in some extreme cases self destruct!

Another tactic used by criminals that may make employees working from home more vulnerable is Phishing. This is a tactic criminals use by sending fake emails that look like they are from an individual/company your familiar with to extort money from you. They will ask you to transfer money to them, they can even send invoices that look genuine. If an employee is working remotely they may be more likely to accept a rogue email especially if they are working under pressure.

Employees may also be targeted over the phone. Social Engineering involves the use of deception to manipulate individuals into transferring money, handing out personal information or convincing an individual to access a link.

Even if you feel your business doesn’t have a typical cyber exposure, it is almost impossible to find someone with no exposure in the connected world.

For a confidential chat about any subject in this blog, your businesses potential exposure and perhaps how a Cyber Insurance policy might benefit you, please call one of our advisers.