Top 5 Steps to Prepare for a Cyber Incident

Source: Howden

Author: Christina Leo

Read time: 3 mins

Having the right measures and processes in place before a cyber incident occurs is crucial to save your business precious time during an event, minimise interruption and to ensure you maximise your insurance coverage.

We wanted to take a moment to remind everyone of the importance of reviewing your business continuity plans and incident reporting procedures to align them with the company’s cyber insurance program, and to share with you our top five recommended steps that you can follow to ensure you’re well prepared for a cyber incident.

Step one:

Review your cyber insurance policies notification requirements annually.

Most policies require that you report cyber incidents to the insurer’s incident response hotline, which can be found in the schedule of your policy and remember to get approval from the insurance company before incurring any costs.

Step two:

Make sure you’ve stored the number to the incident response hotline somewhere offline.

It’s important that it’s stored offline so that you can still access it even if your systems are compromised.?

Step three:

Make sure that the insurance coverage and hotline number have been socialised with anyone who might need to handle a cyber incident, including any subsidiaries in local offices.

So, if an incident happens off hours or in another time zone, others have the ability to access the incident response services.

Step four:

Review you company’s business continuity plan to ensure that it aligns with yor insurance program.

Make sure you plan includes insurance reporting procedures. Also familiarise yourself with insurers panel vendors, particularly the incident response provider. If a provider you use regularly isn’t on the panel, consider getting them pre-approved.

If you’re able, it’s worth considering onboarding an incident response provider as a vendor in advance so you don’t have to waste time onboarding them and getting them approved at the time of an accident if available to you.

It can also be helpful to take advantage of participating in an onboarding call with your insurer to help understand what happens at the time of an incident, and finally, consider setting up a method to track any costs related to a cyber incident via a separate payment code etc. This will make it easier for you to submit a proof of loss should you ever have an incident.

Step five:

Review these steps each year in the even that the details of your insurance policy has changed.

Taking these steps and making sure you have the correct processes in place is crucial to saving precious time during an incident and to maximise your insurance coverage.

To find out more please get in touch: UKGlobal Broking Group Limited