Safeguarding Cyber Insurance Policies With Security Awareness Training

Cyberthreats like ransomware, viruses and social engineering exploits have skyrocketed to heights never before seen in business. Generative AI has further complicated the issues, with companies now doubting their abilities to defend their employees and operations from multiple attack vectors. This has led many companies to invest in costly cyber insurance policies as a precautionary measure.

Like any form of insurance, a cybersecurity policy is a smart investment for any business aiming to soften the financial impact of a security breach. This is true even for those with advanced cybersecurity infrastructure, as it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with new forms of attack. Yet for most policies to remain valid, organizations have to provide regular security awareness training across their workforce.

With cybersecurity threats continuing to evolve at an accelerated pace, organizations need to ensure that their cyber insurance policies remain active at all times. This means leaders must establish and regularly schedule a company-wide cybersecurity training program to fulfill the requirements of their policy and mitigate potential risks. This has the added bonus of upskilling their employees in this important area.

How Cyber Insurance Protects Organizations

Financial loss is one of the most consequential aspects of a successful hack or security breach. This isn’t just through the immediate impact of the incident, but from indirect costs like legal fees and regulatory fines. In fact, research finds the average cost of a data breach in the U.S. averages around $9.36 million.

Considering the substantial amount of money a single breach can take away from an organization, it’s fair to say cyber liability insurance is a wise investment. Additionally, having a policy serves as an act of due diligence for regulatory agencies, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for the healthcare industry or the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA) for the finance sector.

Beyond the financial and regulatory benefits, a cyber liability policy provides peace of mind across every level of the entire organization. Those that were unfortunate enough to fall victim to a cybersecurity breach will note that these situations are incredibly stressful for employees, executives, shareholders and even customers. Having a policy in place is like a light in the darkness, providing reassurance that the organization won’t be completely devastated by the attack.

In 2019, Marriott fell victim to one of the biggest data breaches ever recorded, with criminals stealing the personally identifiable information (PII) and unencrypted payment card information of over 383 million customers. The financial impact of the breach amounted to $72 million, but due to the company having a cyber liability policy, their out-of-pocket expense was just $1 million. While Marriott was still on the hook for legal fees and other expenses, their cyber insurance coverage was undoubtedly beneficial.

Policy Compliance With Security Training

One of the most common requirements for maintaining a cyber liability policy is implementing an employee training program to reduce the likelihood of a breach. Despite many organizations having advanced cybersecurity solutions and managed services to safeguard their operations, a significant portion fail to focus on training their workforce – a critical defense measure.

Employees should be thought of as the first line of defense against threat actors. Since criminals understand that many organizations don’t prioritize company-wide security awareness training, they know they can achieve their goals by exploiting human behavior. Shockingly, human error is the cause of more than 95% of all cyberattacks.

While company-wide security awareness training is necessary for maintaining cyber liability coverage, it’s also a critical step for reducing the overall probability of a cyberattack. Insurance is a worthy investment from a cautionary standpoint, but it shouldn’t be viewed as an actual security measure. Educating employees on best practices and safe ways of working is a much more valuable security measure than simply relying on an insurance policy.

Tips for Cyber Awareness Training

Business leaders cannot underestimate the value of a well-trained workforce, as it’s often the primary factor that determines if an organization will or won’t fall victim to a security breach. What’s key to remember is that training shouldn’t be limited to once or twice a year; it needs to be regularly reinforced so that employees have a complete understanding of what threats they’re facing, how to detect them and how to respond.

The following tips can help organizations build an effective security awareness training program to help employees build a security-centric mindset and maintain compliance with cyber liability policies:

• Simulate Incidents: Allow employees to showcase their understanding of the best cybersecurity practices through realistic simulations, such as social engineering attacks or suspicious online activity. These establish a baseline and help organizations understand where to focus their training efforts.

• Review training performance: Collect and analyze the results of all training sessions to better gauge which employees are most vulnerable to attacks, so that training can be tailored to their strengths and weaknesses.

• Foster a security-centric culture: Instead of making security awareness training a specific event, focus on ingraining security best practices into the organization’s culture. Additionally, avoid repeating the same training regimen every time; try to vary and improve each session to ensure employees stay engaged and retain what they’ve learned.

• Provide resources: Beyond the actual training course, offer employees additional resources and material to continue the learning process. Also, ensure employees are aware of which leaders they can approach with questions and report suspicious behavior or security issues to.

Training is much more than a necessary step for maintaining cyber liability insurance. It’s one of the most important security measures an organization can enact to keep their operations safe from a devastating security breach. Taking a proactive approach and upskilling employees with best practices will create a holistic cybersecurity program that will help organizations stay protected from the evolving threat landscape.