Aon plc’s newly released 2019 Cyber Security Risk Report has identified the biggest threats facing plan sponsors in the technological space and has found that as plan sponsors utilize new technology to speed up information transfers, cyber risk is increasing along with that speed.
The main takeaway is that the number of touch points that cyber criminals can exploit is increasing as technology increases. Mobile and edge devices are allowing more operational data to be exposed to cyber attackers while an increasing reliance on third party vendors and service providers are providing yet another opening for cyber attackers to exploit.
Constant connection to the internet is allowing for more weak points to be exploited as well. Insider breaches, though unintentional, from employees also remain a large risk of breach as they inadvertently expose private information through innocent platforms such as outside email providers. Click here to learn more about plan sponsor cyber vulnerabilities.
Where can a plan sponsor find cyber coverage to mitigate these risks?
Colonial Surety includes cyber liability insurance with our ERISA fidelity bond packages with fiduciary liability insurance to best protect your company plan against a cyber attack.
Colonial’s cyber insurance provides a services-based solution to help plan sponsors manage data breaches successfully. These services include a dedicated team of cyber breach professionals who assist plan sponsors at every stage of incident investigation and breach response. These professionals coordinate the carefully vetted forensics experts and specialized lawyers to help plan sponsors establish what’s been compromised; assess plan sponsor responsibility; and, notify those individuals affected. In addition, these services will also coordinate credit or identity monitoring, and PR advice to help the plan sponsor safeguard its reputation. Of course, Colonial’s cyber insurance also indemnifies and defends plan sponsors from covered lawsuits or regulatory actions, the risk of which may be reduced by a well-coordinated breach response, but can never be completely eliminated.
Ongoing governance and evaluation of recordkeepers can help protect data, but the only way to fully protect against a potential cyber attack’s data breach is to purchase cyber liability insurance from Colonial Surety Company.