Cyber-crime is the #1 risk for Australian businesses, with an incident reported every seven minutes on average to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC).  As well, cyber risks and business interruption are the top insurance concerns for 2023.  However, just one in four Australian businesses have invested in cyber insurance to protect against online risks.

What an attack can cost small business.

A cyber-attack can increase your legal liabilities and cause major financial damage to your small business. There will also be impacts on business productivity, employee morale, and pricing structure.

Typically, cyber breaches include malware, viruses, compromised emails and payments systems, data/privacy breaches and denial of service attacks.

But many small businesses face these in-house barriers to proper online security:

• They assume a limited online presence reduces their cyber risks
• Underestimate the complexity of cyber security.
• Exhibit poor planning and response to cyber incidents.
• Don’t see good cyber security as an opportunity to innovate and grow revenue and profit.

Why you need cyber insurance.

There’s no silver bullet to deflect all cyber risks. A good first step is to include cyber risk into your business risk management practices to build resilience. Then, evaluate what type of data you’re holding and the repercussions of losing that data, for example, privacy breaches in respect of customers personal information.

Your cyber security framework should span these functions: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover.

It’s also worth considering risk management, which includes cyber insurance. Such cover helps reduce specific direct and indirect financial losses to your business because of a cyber incident.

Cyber insurance can give peace of mind to business owners because the insurer assigns you an incident response specialist to manage and recover from the cyber incident.

We’re here to help.

There are two main policy types for cyber coverage: a cyber risk policy which is broad and includes first and third-party liability. Or cyber liability which may only cover your liabilities to third parties because of a cyber incident.

If you would like to know more about cyber risk coverage, please CLICK HERE or contact us for more information.