Working in I.T. and in business, nothing surprises me in terms of people’s skills and specialties. However, there is something to be said when you meet someone in a line of business that is unique. Even more so, it’s interesting when you meet this person casually outside of the business arena.

Over a casual meeting over Shabbos, I meet Shaye Blumenberg from cyberinsuranceexperts.com. After Shabbos I had a 45-minute conversation with him about cyber insurance. After a very enlightening conversation, I asked Shaye if I could interview him for my column.

In past UnGarbled-Tech columns I have written about backing up your data securely with on-site and off-site backups. When I mean backups I do not mean Google Drive or OneDrive; I mean a secure, monitored backup solution with redundancies.

With all the backups, security and firewalls in place, it’s still really hard to truly secure it, contrary to what clients may think. When a client calls that their data is gone or they are wiped out, this is not a joyous occasion, even when it’s what we do for a living. Speaking to Shaye, I learned how important cyber insurance is, and this is a must-have for clients.

UnGarbled-Tech: What is cyber insurance? Who needs cyber insurance?

Shaye: Any business that stores critical personal data such as patient info, social security numbers and DOB, among other important data. Cyber insurance, aka cyber liability, is defined as coverage for losses that occur due to a cyber attack or data breach. A data breach is an incident where any type of private or confidential data was exposed to an unauthorized party.

As we have seen time and again, even with the most robust security in place, any business is still highly at risk for a cyber attack. Cyber insurance will save your business after an event. Be proactive, be protected.

UnGarbled-Tech: I figure most of my readers will have the same thought. Doesn’t my current business insurance cover cyber insurance?

Shaye: Most insurance policies do not have cyber insurance coverage. There are some errors and omission policies or business owners’ policies that do include cyber insurance, but even those usually have a very small sublimit of approximately $25,000 or up to $300,000.

A standalone cyber policy will give you $1 million coverage, and that can be increased as per the company’s needs. Additionally, there are many added coverages that a standalone policy will include that any other policy will not have.

Ungarbled-Tech: What about a small business or startup?

If you run a small business, you may think you are not susceptible to cyber attacks, but that could not be further from the truth. In fact, today, over half of all cyber attacks target small businesses.

Here are some of the reasons why:

Often, small business owners are often simply lacking the necessary knowledge when it comes to cyber security, and because of this they don’t take the proper steps to install encryption, change passwords or lock their systems, thus leaving their information practically unprotected.

Small business owners don’t take cyber defense seriously. Even though small businesses want to stay secure, they just don’t believe that hackers would be interested in their information or even know they exist.

Small business owners pay ransom. If a hacker takes a small business’s information hostage, they rarely have the resources to recover their data, so they just end up paying whatever dollar amount they ask.

Gaining entry to a small business owner’s data often leads hackers to bigger businesses. For instance, during the Target hack a few years ago, customers’ credit card information was stolen because the hackers first gained access to one of their HVAC contractors, which is a smaller company that had Target’s essential info.

Small business owners rarely go after the attacker. In fact, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, only 10 percent of cyber crimes reported to police by SMBs result in a conviction. Cyber crime is the blind spot of a business! Be proactive, be protected!

UnGarbled-Tech: Shaye, I want to thank you for this information. It’s a shame, as you said, that companies need to worry about cyber insurance. Though, on the other hand, any business owner needs to be prepared for the inevitable, as with other insurances. Cyber insurance needs to be included when protecting one’s business.

Shaye Blumenberg can be reached at [email protected].

By Shneur Garb

Shneur Garb is the founder of The Garb I.T. Consulting Group LLC and 1to1chromebooks.com. For questions, call 1-833-Chromebooks or follow @shneurg.