By Sherwood Bowditch
Cyber Liability: The liability a business or individual encounters when communicating or conducting business online.
Online communication tools can result in claims alleging breaches of privacy rights, infringement or misappropriation of intellectual property, employment discrimination, violations of obscenity laws, the spreading of computer viruses, and defamation.
Like a company that owns a building needs property insurance to protect against fire losses, anyone doing business online should consider a cyber liability or data breach policy for protection against its online activities. Even for traditional retail, construction, or manufacturing businesses there is risk of unintentional disclosure of employees’ personal data such as social security numbers, banking information (payroll), and medical information (employer-sponsored health plan).
Most companies store employee and client data, that if exposed or captured by a hacker, could constitute a data breach. Lawyers, accountants, medical professionals and truly anyone that keeps personal information about clients, regardless of format (i.e., paper or electronic), are at risk. Retail and service businesses who store client bank or credit card information for recurring payments are at risk.
The truth is all businesses are at risk for cyber intrusion. Cyber liability policies are very affordable for most companies and should be considered in the context of a complete risk management plan. Please contact us to put a cyber liability policy in place for your business.
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