Six Cybersecurity Insurance Requirements and How To Meet Them

To qualify for cybersecurity insurance, organizations must implement strong access controls, have an incident response plan, use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), provide employees with security training, regularly perform penetration tests and use encryption to protect sensitive data. 

Continue reading to learn more about the six cyber insurance requirements and how your organization can meet them.

The importance of cyber insurance

Having cyber insurance is important for organizations as it provides support in the event they suffer a cyber attack. Should an organization experience a cyber attack and have cyber insurance, it would cover the following:

• Notifying customers
• Recovering customers’ identities
• Repairing systems
• Recovering from the cyber attack
• Associated costs

Does HIPAA require cyber insurance?

No, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) does not require organizations to have cybersecurity insurance. However, this doesn’t mean organizations that fall under HIPAA regulation shouldn’t get cybersecurity insurance since many tend to use cybersecurity insurance as part of their risk management strategy. 

What are the requirements for cybersecurity insurance?

Here are some of the requirements needed to qualify for cyber insurance.

Strong access controls

Cyber insurance requires that organizations have strong access controls in place to prevent unauthorized access to organizational resources. Implementing strong access controls means employees should only have access to the accounts, systems and data they need to do their jobs – not more and not less. Having strong access controls in place helps prevent privilege misuse and prevents threat actors from moving laterally throughout the network if they were to breach it.

Incident response plan

An incident response plan is a document that assigns responsibilities and outlines a list of procedures to follow when a breach or other cybersecurity incident occurs. This plan is meant to help reduce the time it takes to respond to the incident, mitigate the damage it causes and prevent it from happening again in the future.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

MFA is a security measure that requires users to verify their identity using other methods of authentication in addition to their username and password. Since MFA requires multiple factors of authentication, it helps to greatly reduce the likelihood of an account becoming compromised. A report from Microsoft found that enabling MFA on accounts blocked over 99.9% of account compromise attacks, making it one of the most important security measures. 

Employee security awareness and training

Another cyber insurance requirement is to provide employees with regular security awareness and training. This helps employees better spot cyber threats like phishing attempts so they can avoid falling for them and placing their organization at risk of suffering a data breach.

Regular penetration testing

Penetration testing, or pen testing, is a security exercise that assesses the strength of an organization’s security posture. Performing regular pen tests helps organizations determine vulnerabilities so they can take steps to patch those weaknesses and prevent cybercriminals from exploiting them.

Encryption

Encryption turns data from a readable format to an unreadable format, known as ciphertext. Since encryption helps to protect sensitive data from being stolen, read or altered, cyber insurers are likely to inquire about what steps your organization is taking to protect employee and customer Personally Identifiable Information (PII). 

How to meet cybersecurity insurance requirements

Here’s how your organization can meet each of the cybersecurity insurance requirements outlined above. 

Implement strong access controls

The best way for organizations to implement strong access controls is by investing in a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution. PAM solutions enable IT admins to manage and secure access to highly sensitive systems, accounts and data by providing them with complete visibility into their entire data environment. This reduces the organization’s attack surface and helps them comply with cybersecurity insurance requirements. 

Create an incident response plan

To develop a successful incident response plan, you need to follow four key steps: preparation, detection and analysis, containment and eradication, and post-incident recovery. 

Here’s what each of these steps entails.

• Preparation: Compile a list of all your assets and rank them by order of importance. This step also involves the creation of a communication plan that gives your organization guidance on who to contact, and how and when to contact them, based on the type of incident that occurs. 
• Detection and analysis: This second step requires that your incident response team begin analyzing the incident to determine how it happened. 
• Containment and eradication: The third step involves patching the threat actor’s entry point to prevent further damage. This step also aims to remove the threat completely. 
• Post-incident recovery: The last step involves your organization and its employees learning from the incident experience. This will help your organization be better prepared to respond to an incident that may occur in the future. This step will require that your incident response plan be updated. 

Enforce the use of MFA

Every organizational account should have MFA enabled. The best way to enforce the use of MFA is by investing in a business password manager. By using a centralized password management platform, IT administrators can enforce password security policies across the entire organization by setting minimum password length requirements and requiring the use of MFA on every site where it’s supported. 

Provide employees with security awareness and training

In addition to investing in cybersecurity solutions like PAM and a business password manager, organizations should also train employees on cybersecurity best practices such as the following:

• How to spot phishing attempts
• Avoiding public WiFi
• Securely sharing passwords and other sensitive information
• Not clicking on suspicious links and attachments

Provide employees with monthly training sessions on these and other cybersecurity best practices. Not only will training employees help your organization meet cybersecurity insurance requirements, but it can also help mitigate the risks of employees falling for a cyber attack. 

Perform regular penetration testing

You should consider performing a few penetration testing methods every quarter: external, internal, blind and double-blind. 

• External testing: Used to find vulnerabilities with outside attack resources such as on websites and applications. 
• Internal testing: Used to simulate internal attacks like insider threats and human error.
• Blind testing: Used to simulate a real cyber attack. In this type of pen test, the organization knows about the simulated attack, but the white hat hacker only has public information about their “target.”
• Double-blind testing: Used to simulate a real cyber attack. In this type of pen test, the organization doesn’t know about the simulated attack and the white hat hacker has only public information about them.

Based on the results of the pen tests your organization performs, you should patch vulnerabilities and take the appropriate steps to further secure your organization’s network. 

Ensure sensitive data is encrypted

Every piece of information your organization stores, such as customer and employee PII, should be encrypted to prevent it from being accessed by unauthorized individuals. This also means that sensitive data your employees access regularly, like login credentials, should be encrypted as well. A password manager with secure file storage can help your organization ensure that all data is encrypted, including login credentials. 

Meet cyber insurance requirements and prevent data breaches with Keeper®

Meeting cyber insurance requirements shouldn’t be difficult for your organization because the requirements are cybersecurity best practices that your organization should already be following. If not, it’s time to strengthen your organization’s cybersecurity by investing in a privileged access management solution like Zero-Trust KeeperPAM®.

Zero-Trust KeeperPAM addresses network visibility and security controls by ensuring strong authentication, providing strong access controls, recording activity during privileged sessions and alerting admins to suspicious activity with Privileged Account and Session Management (PASM), and supporting audits and reports for compliance and regulatory purposes through session and event logs. 

Ready to meet cybersecurity insurance requirements with Zero-Trust KeeperPAM? Request a demo today.