As the risks of cyber breaches and hacks continue to rise, social media risks are rampant. Employees not only use social media for personal use, but also as a forum to talk about their company, products, personal problems as well as most anything that might be on their mind.
Regardless of obvious social media benefits these channels provide, there is significant margin for damage on these platforms. Social media can transform a company through marketing, communication and sales; however, there is also a risk that hackers may use employee information on social media to hack into your company’s networks, servers or databases. Even worse, the sites can be used to transmit computer viruses and other dangerous malware.
In the ever-evolving digital age, more and more small to mid-sized companies are expanding their social media presence and networks. The rewards are limitless but at times the risks may outweigh the good. A large social media presence opens your company to cyber risk.
It is pertinent to establish a social media policy for your business’s employees to follow while utilizing company computers and servers. Employee online behavior can inadvertently put your company at risk. For example, many companies block access to social sites from their networks to reduce risking the network to hackers, computer viruses and dangerous malware.
Engage with your employees on key tactics they can employ in order to reduce cyber risk. One of the most effective ways to prevent hacking is by protecting social media identities. Explain to your employees that it is important to be selective when accepting “friend requests”. Unless they recognize the name and know the company, encourage them not to accept the request, particularly while on company hardware.
When it comes to Wi-Fi, you should be extremely cautious instead of automatically connecting to the connection that’s easily available. While some of these tactics seem obvious, they are essential to managing your privacy settings.
How Cyber Insurance Can Help
Establishing cyber insurance for your company is worth considering, as it can help protect you and your company. Your business data is essential to your operations as a competitive edge. Any size business can have its data breached or stolen. Think of your doctor’s offices, retail shops, contractors, salespeople, … the list goes on and on. Almost any profession today keeps business—and sometimes personal—information stored electronically.
Traditional forms of insurance like general liability, property, business income and crime insurance are designed to cover tangible property. Since digital information is intangible, the insurance your business currently has most likely will not cover losses due to cyber hacks or cyber attacks.
Cyber insurance can help cover any costs that your company may incur while trying to restore a breach, such as lost income and some cover liability in the event that data breach victims sue you. Recovering customer data such as forensic investigation, crisis management, cost of contacting customers, advertising to rebuild reputation, and computer program and electronic data restoration can be costly.
Here at Penny Insurance, our agents are ready to help you determine which type of insurance is the best fit for your business. We also can provide tips to help you manage your computer and technology risks developing from data loss, data breaches, denial of service attacks, malware, viruses and more. We are here to help you solve your most demanding problems. Let us help protect you. Contact us today.