By Devin Shirley, CISO, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield Everything is changing fast. Since the development of the integrated circuit, we have seen technology continue to change and increase on a logarithmic scale. The pace of technological improvement is also increasing, forcing companies to adapt to keep up with or stay ahead of competitors. As a result, there is a continual drive to improve and gain efficiencies, enabling organizations to offer better products with greater efficiency and an improved customer experience. Unfortunately, with all the good technology brings, there is a dark side. Bad actors leverage technological advances to achieve various objectives, ranging from political activism and monetary gain to simple mischief and pride. Regardless of motivation, attacks on technological systems can be significant, impacting the organization and its ability to continue operating effectively. To alleviate the impact of an attack, organizations can manage this risk by leveraging cyber insurance. With attacks on the rise, cyber insurance has become a critical part of any security strategy to help organizations as they adapt to the changing cyber and technology landscape. Cyber insurance has become a significant risk management tool to ensure companies can successfully absorb the financial impacts of a cybersecurity attack. The impact of cyber attacks continues to grow as they become more sophisticated. While early attacks leveraged mostly backdoors and other vulnerabilities, current capabilities have created a wider group of bad actors who can do more, faster. Perpetrators have grown beyond sophisticated nation-state organizations conducting espionage to criminal organizations and individuals seeking monetary gains. The emergence of malicious organizations, such as Ransomware as a service (RaaS), and other similarly organized efforts, offers capabilities to less savvy individuals looking to cash in quickly or make a name for themselves. And while vulnerabilities are still present, social engineering makes it easier to gain access to system environments. As an example, phishing and smishing attacks take advantage of individuals who inadvertently allow attackers easy access into an organization where they exercise tactics and deploy tools to accomplish their goals. And, though ransomware continues to be a popular method of monetary exploitation, denial of service attacks are on the rise. And this list of attack methods continues to grow as technology continues to advance, enabling bad actors to do more with less complexity.With the rise in data breaches and multiple cyber attacks, new compliance requirements continue to push companies to maintain a minimum set of standards for cybersecurity. While compliance does not protect against cyber attacks, compliance with frameworks, regulatory requirements, and customer requirements can help frame security strategies, drive budget requests, and help companies meet a base level of assurance for their stakeholders.Cybersecurity insurance can also help provide companies a way to mitigate the results of a cyber attack. Most security strategies and planning focus on detecting and preventing threats, but there has been a shift among security professionals to place an equal amount of focus on business resiliency. To ensure resiliency, cyber insurance assists with the financial impact of a security incident. While it does not necessarily cover all costs associated with the attack, it can lessen the impact. From a risk point of view, this is known as risk transference, where a third party absorbs a portion of the risk. In this instance, the insurance company shares part of the financial risk of the company that suffered the cyber incident.Cyber insurance can be a great combat multiplier to help companies in their fight to defend, protect, and recover from attacks. As previously stated, a good cyber insurance policy can help a company maintain resiliency by absorbing part of the costs of recovering from an attack. However, bringing on a cyber insurance policy also aids with defending and protecting, as it typically requires compliance with a minimum set of security controls. A security program can integrate these controls into their company and leverage them to continue building the security program and obtain budget, staff, capabilities, and support from senior-level and board leadership.When signing up for cyber insurance, an organization will need to determine the right coverage, based on their risk appetite. Companies should consider various risk scenarios to determine the impact on the company in the event of a security incident. Though most costs occur immediately, organizations should also weigh the long-term impact of an incident, considering multi-year costs that may not be immediately realized, such as legal fees and loss of business.Cyber insurance has become a significant risk management tool to ensure companies can successfully absorb the financial impacts of a cybersecurity attack. While they may not cover all costs, they will help to maintain resiliency and manage the impact of the incident. By providing input into an organization’s security program, they play a role in guiding an organization’s strategy and security decisions, such as which forensics firm to use and guidance for paying ransoms. Cyber insurance may not be part of every organization’s security program, but when a major event occurs, it does help to know a company can partner with someone to lessen the impact and partner with the organization in the time of crisis. The post Changing Landscape of Cybersecurity and the Role of Cyber Insurance as a Combat Multiplier appeared first on HealthTech Magazines.
Source: https://www.healthtechmagazines.com/changing-landscape-of-cybersecurity-and-the-role-of-cyber-insurance-as-a-combat-multiplier/
Leave a Reply