A Real Life Cyber Insurance Claim Example

Cyber Insurance is the current hot topic with many larger corporate businesses currently in the spotlight after various companies have confirmed that their networks have been breached with personal information currently being held at ransom. This article aims to show that cyber-attacks happen to businesses of all sizes. Just because it's not in the news doesn't mean that it isn't happening.

We recently worked with a client of ours who hadn't considered Cyber Insurance prior to their incident occurring. To them, it was considered to be an "it'll never happen to me" situation. Until they were exploited for a $14,000 socially engineered transaction.

So what happened?

It was business as usual when an email was sent from one of the Director's emails to their designated accounts payable clerk requesting that an attached invoice be paid and invoiced to a regular customer's account. This was standard and considered common practice in their family-owned business. It wasn't until the account was paid and the invoice was forwarded to the end client requesting payment of their account that the client called and stated they knew nothing about the transaction. 

The Accounts Payable clerk then proceeded to backtrack their communication line, speaking with the Director and referencing the email requesting payment to be made which the Director responded that he was unaware of sending any emails of such description. After investigating further they realised that the email was sent maliciously using the Directors email address and the socially engineered fraud has taken place successfully. 

It was then realized after multiple customers made contact with the company that further emails had been sent that the Director didn't know about which attached fraudulent quotes were being issued. Assuming that these quotes were either intending to spread the infection as a form of click-bait or an attempt to receive payments to a fraudulent account re-directed account.  

It is important to know that these types of fraudulent transactions are taking place every single day. Some are recoverable, and some, unfortunately, are not. If you aren't considering cyber insurance as part of your insurance package then we strongly recommend that you do, considering the cost of cyber insurance is quite affordable in comparison to most other business policies.