You’ve been reading about it, hearing about it and have
potentially been affected by it. Yet,
most people have yet to protect themselves from the potential of a loss due to
a cyber-attack or a data breach. It’s
becoming more and more apparent that the new order of terrorism lies in
creating havoc within the databases of companies of all sizes. Sometimes, the act of invasion is merely to
disrupt and to make a statement, while most of the time, the invasion is
seeking records that can provide saleable information to the wider criminal
marketplace. And, as society around the globe becomes more
desperate, the risk grows. Following is
a summary of some of the largest breaches of 2014. There were thousands of others that you won’t
read about, unless you’re the victim, of course.
January, 2014.
Michaels had over 3 million customer’s information compromised. During the same month, Target followed up
with an episode that exposed over 70 million customer names, addresses, phone
numbers and email addresses. Fortunately,
there was some coverage for Target. In a
quarterly report to shareholders, Target reported that they have currently
accounted for about $200 million in expenses relating to the breach, of which
$90 million was collected as an insured loss.
August, 2014.
Community Health Systems, which operates 206 hospitals across 28 states,
had hackers from China uncover information pertaining to 4.5 million
patients. Although personal health
information was not compromised, social security numbers and other personal
information were captured, exposing the system to potential for litigation.
September, 2014. Home
Depot discovered that approximately 56 million shopper’s credit card
information and about 53 million email addresses were gathered as a result of
malware installed for the self-checkout operation between April and
September. There are currently about 44
lawsuits resulting from the cyber-attack.
October, 2014. JP Morgan experienced the effects of Russian
hackers affecting 76 million households and information including names,
addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.
Fortunately, account numbers were not compromised. Although no unusual fraud activity was
observed as a result of the breach, it does portray the risk is real. Additionally, nine other financial
institutions were hacked by the same group of Russian instigators.
November, 2014. The
US postal service had over 800,000 employee’s personal information compromised.
Although those were situations that received attention from
the press, there are daily occurrences to small businesses and individuals that
you won’t read or hear about, unless it happens to you.
Cyber liability and data breach is becoming a common area of
risk to insure against. Make sure that
you review your coverage and include protection for cyber liability and data
breach occurrences. Sometimes what you can’t see can hurt you.
