Maintaining cyber-insurance coverage for your business is getting more challenging and expensive because of ransomware and cyber security attacks. It’s getting so serious, that many insurers might not even provide you coverage…

Here is what you need to know.

Why should you care?

There is no doubt cyber crime is on the rise. In the first half of 2021, global ransomware attacks increased by 151% when compared with the first half of 2020. This year has also been marked by the highest ransoms and the highest payouts. In Canada, the estimated average cost of a data breach, a compromise that includes but is not limited to ransomware, was $6.35M CAD.  Check out the government of 2021 Canada Security Threat Bulletin.

What will happen in the coming years?

This is an evolving trend. Ransomware users know and research their intended target, squeezing as much money as the company can possibly give. At the same time, in 2021, the global average total cost of recovery from a ransomware incident (i.e., The cost of paying the ransom and/or remediating the compromised network) has more than doubled , increasing from $970,722 CAD in 2020 to $2.3M CAD in 2021.

Cybersecurity insurers such as Lloyd’s in London, a major insurance company, has noticed this trend. They will not insure country to country cyber warfare and they have cut in half the amount of people who can receive insurance and increased their prices by 50%.

Canadian insurers have started to require insured businesses to offer multi-factor authentications to make the systems they insure are safer from incurring these increasing costs.

How to protect yourself (and your insurance policy)!

Multi-factor Authentication is a complicated way of simply saying that you are going to add further steps or locks on the door to your systems. This extra security goes a long way and has a low cost compared to the cost of the ransomware it is designed to prevent.

The areas to protect that promote the best cybersecurity practices are?

1. Remote networks
2. Administrative access, and
3. Remote access to email.

To learn more information on Multi-Factor Authentication and why it is becoming more important Check out our article: Why is Multi-Factor Authentication replacing passwords? (And why to care.)

Prevention versus Reaction. (Get in front of this!)

With Ransomware increasing and becoming more of a problem consider dealing with this issue ahead of time before MFA becomes absolutely mandatory for insurance or worse you are the victim of a horrible ransomware experience. It is less costly by a large magnitude to put in place preventative measures.

Britec and our team of experts are here to help you, if you have any questions please contact us today.