Data Breach/Identity Recovery

by Tom Wolf

When Do You Need It?

Our methods of conducting business in both personal and business continues to evolve. Many of our transactions, means of record keeping, employee and customer information are no longer solely and safely stored in our office and homes. With these changes how do we protect our businesses and personal information?

Protecting the business can be obtained in the form of Data Breach coverage. What is data breach? A data breach is the intentional or unintentional release of security information to a nontrusted environment. The breach is when a security incident occurs. This would allow sensitive, protected or confidential data to be copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen, or used by an unauthorized individual. These breaches can include loss of digital media from computers, laptops, cell phones, and hard drives. Much of this information is unencrypted.

Think of what an average business has in their computer system. A partial list but certainly is not limited to social security numbers, credit card numbers, employment information, drug tests, and financial information.

What organization or person would cause a data breach? A cyber criminal can hack into a system or network. Human error, lost laptop, email/fax can be sent to the wrong number, cell phone or iPad. A disgruntled employee or ex-employee.

All employers need to implement security measures and create contingencies. Secure all accounts and devices. Be careful of what you share. Educate all employees, introduce and enforce guidelines, and regularly perform security audits.

Insurance protection can come in the way of data breach liability and response coverage. This coverage can extend to the expense to notify all those affected. Provide legal and technology costs. You may be legally liable to pay for damages for any information that was released by either criminal or noncriminal activity.

We not only have an exposure on the business side but we also have an exposure in our personal lives. We have all heard of people getting their personal information stolen. Your personal information identity includes social security, credit card, tax and medical numbers.

No one is immune, identity theft is a fast growing crime. What happens when your identity is stolen? Your information is used to commit a crime in your name. This information can be obtained to theft online, stolen wallet or credit card.

This theft can ruin your credit, employment possibilities, and medical records. This can cause a denial for a loan, job or medical treatment. Recovery of your identity can be very costly and time consuming.

You are able to purchase this coverage thru most homeowner policies. This provides coverage for lost wages, attorney fees, refilling of applications for credit, tax ID fraud related costs and travel costs are a few of the reimbursement costs that can be covered. You will also have professional guidance to help you thru the process.

Both our professional and personal lives have this exposure, to be subject to this type of crime is a very unsettling position. As we now can see, there is help in getting thru difficulties of storing our personal good name and that of our business.

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