To determine whether you need cyber insurance, first we need to have a full understanding of the concept and what does it mean. It is an insurance product to be used in the digital landscape, with the intention of protecting individuals and business alike from risks and threats regarding the use of information technology (IT) activities and infrastructure.
The Internet-based risks are, as a norm, excluded from regular insurance policies, or their structure is not clearly defined. That scenario is amended thanks to the rise and popularity of cyber insurance companies and providers.
Cyber insurance policies and providers often offer first-party coverage against data destruction, extortion, theft, hacking, and denial of service attacks. Also, they provide (depending on the firm, of course) liability coverage indemnifying businesses for losses to others caused by failure to safeguard data, errors, omissions, defamation; and other benefits such as regular security-audit, post-incident public relations, and investigative expenses, not to mention criminal reward funds.
As you can see, cyber insurance can be a useful tool to have for companies and businesses, especially those that make their profit with information technologies and data management. However, individual users have come to appreciate and use these resources, too.
Questions to ask yourself before getting cyber insurance
There is nothing wrong with having the intention of protecting yourself from potential future losses and trying to minimize the impact of your damages. But is it essential? It will depend, as always, of the circumstances. Ask yourself these questions:
- What precisely constitutes a cyber risk?
Every potential hazard or threat that comes from the use of the Internet, information technology, virtual reality, and electronic communication networks can be considered a cyber risk. The process of cyber risk management encompasses risk avoidance, risk mitigation, and risk transfer or self-insurance.
Risk avoidance comes first, and it has the duty of spotting weaknesses and assessing associated risk. The company estimates risk levels and works to prevent them from happening.
- Why do I need cyber insurance?
While it is clear that business and individuals with a high worth can benefit the most from cyber insurance as they have more things to lose, ‘ordinary,’ salaried employees often find themselves in need as well. Online threats have varying types of damaging power: from password theft, bank transaction details, or identity stealing, and even ransomware, they also need risk protection.
For companies, cyber insurance can mitigate some of the burdens of potential financial losses, business interruption, and even reputation damage. Firms often need the right risk management program and protection scheme, and cyber insurance can transfer the risk once the secrecy of your data or that of your company has been compromised.
- The exact meaning of cyber insurance
You have to understand what cyber insurance is, and from that point, you will be able to determine whether you need it or you require any other tool instead, like antivirus software. Cyber insurance companies proactively prevent all online risks, as their action is not limited to virus and malware.
If the security measures you, or your company, have been implementing aren’t sufficient, then you need to consider cyber insurance. Whereas antivirus can protect you from the latest malware, they can’t transfer risk, come up with a broader security plan, respond for financial losses, or similar things. That’s when you need a more significant, powerful tool.
Cyber insurance can help you with crisis management, ransomware extortion, data destruction, and the potential financial damages that the interruption of business can inflict.
- Costs and prices
As it happens with everything in life, hiring the services of a cyber insurance company will depend on your budget. By now, the market has been set: the cheapest alternatives come at around $30 per year, while the most expensive ones can surpass $500.
Of course, the costs will depend on the features and services that each company can offer. If you continuously lose valuable data, then you need to find cyber insurance ASAP because specialists can charge tons of money for hourly work.
- The perception of cyber insurance
As governments all over the world have started to pay more attention to nature and damage inflicted by hackers and other cyber threats, we at least know that awareness is rising in most locations. However, knowing that an attack may come is often not enough.
Global authorities can prevent cyber risks by increasing funding for the researches, and they can work together to limit the losses of online risks and to fight digital crimes more efficiently.
The most crucial development in the online security landscape would be a unified legal framework that can impose severe punishments to cybercriminals and help minimize the risks associated with the use of the Internet.
VPN: the perfect alternative to cyber insurance
If you have determined that you don’t need cyber insurance, or that the prices and your needs don’t fit the budget of the policy you want, then we have another solution for your online problems: find a reliable VPN service and hire it.
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It is a technology that can hide the user’s IP address and traffic to enhance privacy and protection because of the former acts like the customer’s online identity and shows its location, which can derive in potential dangers. Additionally, agents like hackers, online advertising agencies, malware developers, and others are continually looking to have access to the person’ data logs, which are shared by the Internet Service Provider (ISP.) Fortunately, VPN brands and companies can mask the content from ISPs, avoiding future dangers and considerably reducing risks.
TorGuard is the industry premier VPN company. It is a complete security and privacy suite that implements robust encryption and a strict no logging policy to protect the user’s digital assets at all times. It manages over 3,000 virtual servers in 55 countries so that you can spoof your location and “rent” another online identity from several places. At $10 per month, TorGuard is affordable, and there are discounts for longer-term commitments.
In conclusion, cyber insurance companies provide risk management and avoidance while helping people cover losses of all kinds. However, you need to ask yourself if you need such a policy: most of the time, a VPN will suffice.
