You hear about data breaches at giant companies like Equifax and Sony, but did you know that individuals, such as plan sponsors, are extremely vulnerable to cyber attack? What can you as a plan sponsor do to prevent data breach?
The consequences for individuals who have their personal information stolen are similar regardless of whether it was through a giant Equifax-sized breach or from a plan sponsor. That’s why you have to protect plan participant information.
You need to take the breach seriously. For starters, address whatever vulnerability was exposed, and contact everyone who possibly had their info stolen. You should react as quickly as possible to guard against bigger breaches and more information being stolen. Click here to learn more about small business data breaches.
Where can I purchase cyber liability insurance that includes a decided team helping with investigation and breach response?
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.