| E-business is growing in importance, but the risks are growing as well |
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Hardly a week goes past without a
newspaper report about the theft of personal details by a hacker or
criminal organisation. The protection and proper usage of data stored is becoming much more important. Because of the increasing number of businesses that hold client details, more will need to take extra care to protect the information from accidental loss, malicious actions or theft for criminal purposes. If the worst happened, and data does get into third party hands with the customer suffering financial loss, then there is a strong presumption of negligence and compensation may need to be paid. This is just one area of a new range of cyber-liabilities that can arise in modern businesses. It is estimated that, worldwide, there are some 170m websites, containing some 17bn web pages accessed by over 1bn people annually. The sheer scale of electronic use exposes businesses to thoughtless or malicious acts on an unimaginable scale. There are now great risks of employees maliciously or inadvertently breaching copyright, data protection trademark, or plagiarism legislation, transmitting viruses and creating a whole host of other potentially litigious situations. If a company uses email, they are in effect publishers and its employees are its authors. A publisher would never release a story until it has been thoroughly checked. Apart from the breaches outlined above this can lead to libel, defamation and other such actions. High-tech crime is estimated to account for more than one third of financial crime in the UK, and more than 77% of bigger businesses reported virus attacks costing large sums. A company’s first priority should be to ensure that security is in place to reduce the chances of attack, and rules are enforced re passwords and email use. However, rules can be ignored and security breached so to protect you further, insurance is available as a safety net. Insurance can protect you against accidental breach of copyright, defamation and libel, network breaches by third parties, and unknowingly spreading viruses. It can cover claims against you and, in some cases, the cost of putting your own system right. In addition insurance cover on computers under a ‘Commercial Combined’ or ‘Office Package’ policy will usually only cover replacement costs of computers and peripherals in the event of damage. More specific ‘Computer Insurance’ is however widely available and affordable allowing you to also protect software programmes, computer records, loss of information and increased costs of working with research and development costs, fees for consulting engineers and costs caused by incompatibility of computer systems records often also included. If you would like any help in ensuring your system is safe, or more information on insurance protection, contact your insurance broker or insurer for help. For further information please contact a member of our team |
