Arkansas HVACR NewsMagazine September 2021

S tate, National, Chapter News State national Chapter News

Cyber Liability

By Nick Hall Cross Pointe Insurance Advisors In Partnership with Arkansas HVACR Association I hope you have all had a great (and safe) Summer! I can only assume this heat has you all very busy. You may not be, but I know I am ready for the temperature to start dropping! Our Risk Management topic this Month is Cyber Liability . I am sure you have all heard about breaches at some of the largest companies in the world such as Home Depot, Target, and Equifax; but, what you may not hear about are the even more common breaches that affect companies like yours. CNBC Reported in 2020 that more than half of all small business suffered a breach within the last year. The Covid pandemic has only made things worse. With more workers logging into their computers remotely, hackers now have even more avenues to find their way into a business’s system. Munich Re estimates the total global economic cybercrime costs in 2021 to be $6 Trillion, up from $3 Trillion in 2015. You may find varying estimates according to the source, but one thing is for sure, the total economic impact of cybercrime is significant and growing. So, what is Cyber Liability? Cybersecurity Risk is the potential loss or harm related to technical infrastructure or the use of technology within an organization .

Those potential losses include the damage or destruction of data, monetary loss, theft of intellectual property, productivity loss, reputational harm, and more . While there are several types of incidents that can lead to a Cyber Liability claim, I want to expand on 3 of the most common – Data Breaches, Ransomware, and Social Engineering . • A Data Breach is a release of private information that may cause financial or reputational harm. This information can be your company’s private information such as Intellectual Property or Personal Private Information like your employees’ or customers’ Social Security Number, Credit Card or Bank Information, Medical Records, etc… A Data Breach can be due to a computer breach but can also be triggered by human error such as losing paper records or failure to keep their passwords secure. A Computer system breach does not necessarily have to occur to trigger a Cyber Liability incident! • Ransomware is a computer software that blocks access to your computer system until a sum of money is paid. Typically, in Ransomware incidents, hackers demand payment be made by