Data Breach Coverage for Tennessee Businesses

In any business, you are often handling sensitive and private information of employees and clients. But what would you do if somehow this data that your business has been entrusted to protect somehow was breached, or leaked to untrustworthy sources? Data breaches are quickly becoming more and more prevalent in the age of technology. In fact, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, 614 breaches occurred in 2013, which is 30 percent more than those that occurred in 2012. This may not seem like a huge number, but in each case, large amounts of information were dispersed, putting many people at risk. In the first quarter of 2014 alone, 176 million sensitive records were breached and exposed according to the Open Security Foundation. If a breach of data that your company holds were to occur, your business would be held responsible for letting sensitive information be accessed by unauthorized parties, greatly hurting your business’s reputation.

Elite Insurance Solutions can provide your business with data breach coverage, customizing a liability policy that best fits the needs of your company.

When you are protected by Elite Insurance Solutions, no doubt you will feel and be safer in terms of liability issues. Yet there are still measures you can take to help prevent data breaches from occurring. For example, business laptops typically have easily accessible sensitive information on them.

• Don’t set up automatic log-ins, as they make it easy to breach a secure account.
• Keep your laptop locked up when you are not using it.
• When traveling, carry your laptop on the airplane with you.
• Keep all of your information backed-up.
• Don’t leave your laptop unattended in a car.
• Have a good encryption policy for your company.
• Shred sensitive data when disposing of it.
• Keep paper files with sensitive data locked up.
• Have antivirus and antispyware software installed on all business computers.
• Only open email attachments if they are from a trusted source.
• Enable a firewall.
• Password protect your company’s Wi-Fi network.
• Keep your employees informed about the dangers of data breaches and train them to keep sensitive information safe.
• Practice data minimization by only collecting sensitive data that you need, disposing of sensitive data once it is no longer needed, and limiting and keeping track of who has access to this data.

It is important to keep in mind that if a data breach does occur, in order to protect the integrity of your company you must notify all clients and employees so that preventative actions can be taken to secure information. For example, in a data breach situation, everyone involved with the company should change their passwords to vital accounts. In some cases, it is legally mandatory to report data breaches to your clients and employees, especially if it involves private health information as reported by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.