Huge data breaches happen every year – and everyone is at risk.
In the event that data is stolen, a business faces the challenge of not only protecting their clients’ data, but the expenses associated with a data breach. A way a business can protect itself from breaches, hackers, and scammers is through Cyber Liability and Data Breach coverage.
“It helps reimburse monetary loss and fines associated with breaches to both the business and their customers,” explained Nick Arnoldy, owner/broker of Marshfield Insurance.
Arnoldy recommends that everyone have data breach coverage even if you don’t have a computer-related system. “It covers information that could be copied on paper financial statements, as well as stolen smartphones and laptops,” he said.
Sensitive information is at risk. Most businesses retain employee records that contain confidential employee data – Social Security number and dates of birth. They also accept payments by check, which have customer’s account numbers, routing numbers on the physical check, and debit or credit card transactions.
According to Arnoldy, card readers and online vendors can sometimes provide a false sense of security by promoting their systems to be secure.
“The card reader vendors and online payment vendors of small and large businesses cannot control or guarantee data transmitted via the internet to be safe,” he explained. “In other words, payment vendors have securities in place and sometimes indemnify their clients while the data is stored with them, but the internet highway it travels on is vulnerable to interception.”
The best way to protect data is by using hard-to-guess passwords and password protecting all mobile devices and laptops used for work.
To create a more secure password, avoid simple keyboard patterns (like qwerty) and all-numbers (123456). You may also want to avoid easy-to-find information such as birthdays, favorite sports teams and addresses. Attempt to create a password that is eight or more characters long, and don’t use the same password for multiple accounts.
Here are the top 25 most commonly stolen passwords of 2018, as determined by IT security firm SplashData.
- 123456
- password
- 123456789
- 12345678
- 12345
- 111111
- 1234567
- sunshine
- qwerty
- iloveyou
- princess
- admin
- welcome
- 666666
- abc123
- football
- 123123
- monkey
- 654321
- !@#$%^&*
- charlie
- aa123456
- donald
- password1
- qwerty123
