CSI Blogs about Insurance in Technology

Hacker Coverage: Interview with Bryan Costello

As Internet crimes continue to increase, we ask you do you have “hacker coverage?” This is more formally known as Breach of Security coverage. Mark Evans from Vator News sits down with our CEO Bryan Costello to discuss it.

5 Ways to Stop a Cyber Hacker

1.  Hacker: Often times a hacker is a personal friend that can guess your password.

Solution: The password you create should have multiple different characters, numbers, and symbols. Often times, people make their passwords too simple and they can be easily guessed.

2. Hacker: Hackers can click on the, “forgot password,” link on the login page. From there they will be asked a series of simple questions that YOU set the answer to. Usually, they know the answer because it is common knowledge about you.

Solution: Pick an extremely difficult security question. Almost anyone can find out your, “dog’s name.” Choose a question that only YOU know.

3. Hacker: Hackers who want to find out your username and password send out Phishing emails. These emails will ask you to login to your account in an illegitimate way.  

Solution: Disregard “phishing emails.” They can often take credit card numbers, banking numbers, and social security numbers.

4. Hacker: Hackers can easily install spyware on your computer. Spyware is hidden software that records all of your keystrokes and screen shots. This is usually the result of downloading questionable files.

Solution: Avoid spyware by buying a good anti-spyware system. It will search your computer and destroy any spyware.

5. Hacker: A hacker has usually been a trusted friend that already knows your password because you told them.

Solution: Do not tell anyone your password! That is top secret information!

Social Networking Extortion, The New Threat

Just like the rest of cyberspace, cyber extortion is taking some new turns into social networking.  Just last week a man in Chino, CA was charged with extortion after he allededly threatened to send millions of emails and social networking messages that maligned a large life insurance company unless he was  paid almost $200,000.   It seems that through a series of emails and web postings, he allegedly warned employees, executives and a board member of the insurance ompany that their reputation would be ruined if his  demands were not met.  According to the prosecutors in the case, the defendant threatened to spam more than 6M people with links to a website that was highly critical of the various financial products offered by the insurance company.  The defendant also allegedly described himself as a “huge social networker” who would use his contacts to send more than 200,000 people messages.  It seems the defendants threats were due to his unhappiness related to the performance of his life insurance.

Cyber Liability and comprehensive Technology Errors & Omissions policies can include coverage for “cyber extortion” claims.  This coverage is either included at the full policy limit or can be subject to a lessor sub-limit.  We’ve not seen very many cyber extortion cases among our client base, however with the social networking world playing a bigger and bigger part of business reputation, we expect this type of case to be on the rise.  Take a moment to consider how you might be at risk.