CYBER INSURANCE and the NEW Data Breach Laws

With the new Mandatory Data Breach Notification legislation (Fine up to $1.80Mil), which came into effect February 2018, this policy can no longer be ignored.

The cyber-attack numbers are alarming with statistics showing more than 20% of Australian businesses experiencing cybercrime, and 40% of all attacks directed at small businesses.

What does Cyber Liability and Privacy Protection Insurance cover?

Cyber Insurance is designed to protect businesses of all kinds for the cyber exposures it faces from both third party claims (such as actions brought by the Privacy Commissioner, or clients suing for breach of privacy). Companies with access to private, confidential information about their customers have a responsibility to keep it secure. Cyber insurance typically includes:

Privacy regulatory Defence and Penalties Investigation by regulators can be expensive to defend. This covers your legal costs to comply with any regulatory action taken against you following a data beach and can also pay for civil penalties (where allowed) and compensatory awards levied by regulators.

Cyber Extortion Hackers can threaten to release confidential information or damage your computer network in an attempt to extort money. This covers ransom paid to avoid the threat from becoming real. ●Technology Professional Services This covers your liability in the event you are sued as a result of your technology services. This could include breach of contract, efficacy (fitness for purpose), plagiarism, defamation, libel or slander. ●Multimedia Liability This covers your liability in the event you are sued as a result of information provided in your multimedia e.g. your website or publications and advertising material. Examples would be breach of copyright, libel or slander, plagiarism or defamation and infringement of the right to one’s privacy.

Security and Privacy Liability This covers your liability in the event you suffer a data breach and you are sued by the affected party including customers or employees. This also includes theft or altering of data viruses or malware, denial of service and other loss of data from your systems.

Customer Support and Reputational Expenses If a data breach occurs, this will cover costs incurred to maintain your reputation and provide support to your clients, such as public relations firm to help repair damage to your brands; legal costs for notifying your affected customers or offering credit monitoring services; setting up call centres for concerned customers; bringing in IT forensic teams to ascertain the cause of the data breach and potentially remove the hacker from your system.

Data Recovery and Business Interruption This covers the cost to restore, re-collect or replace affected data stored at your premises or at your external backup data centre or storage facilities, and loss of revenue due to network downtime because of a security breach.

If you would like to discuss Cyber Insurance in more detail or if you wish to obtain a quotation, please contact Gippsland Branch Adroit MHL Insurance & Risk on 1300 645 645.