As a creator, you’re likely to face short and long-term effects once your business has been affected by cybercrime. Short-term effects are easy to deal with, while long-term effects can easily take you out of business.
Below is a list of effects a creator or any business is likely to face as a result of cybercrime:
- Loss of data and other digital resources relevant to your business and its operation
- Your financial data that of your client is exposed
- Bad reputation- it’s hard for your audience or customers to trust you again, especially for creators such as bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, and social media influencers.
- The productivity of your business is affected; therefore, your revenue is negatively affected as well.
What is cyber liability insurance?
Cyber liability insurance is an insurance policy that protects a business against data breaches and other cyber security issues. Depending on your policy, it might also cover extortion threats, replacement or restoration of data, loss of business income, public relations expenses, computer and funds transfer fraud, social engineering, ransom payments, post breach remediation, hardware replacement costs, telecommunication fraud and legal costs linked to cyber threats within your business.
Who are creators who need cyber security insurance?
There is a massive demand for written, audio and visual content online; therefore, more creators are coming up in different industries/ niches. Equally, more cybercriminals are targeting all types of creators with different aims. It’s for a reason creators need cyber security insurance.
But who are these creators anyways? It’s simply an individual or business involved in the following:
- Photo/ Videography
- Broadcasting
- Blogging
- YouTube content creation
- Publishing online
- Graphic design
- Music/ video production
- Social media influencing
- Advertising agency etc.,
What are some of the instances creators have been victims of cybercrime?
There have been several instances whereby creators in various spaces such as social media, YouTube, media houses, personal blogs, etc., have been affected by cybercrime. Below are some of the prevalent incidences:
- In June 2020, the personal data of about 100,000 social media influencers were accessed and partially leaked due to a breach that occurred to one of the social media marketing firms. The information leaked about the social media influencers entailed names, phone numbers, emails, and home addresses.
- Statistics show there are over 200 million active websites, and approximately 30 000 sites are hacked every day. In 2020, the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack was one of the most utilized techniques by cybercriminals to attack websites, including blogs.
- In October 2021, there was an incident whereby thousands of high-profile creators’ YouTube accounts were attacked/ hijacked and turned into cryptocurrency scam live streams. Additionally, some of the YouTube creators were completely denied access to their accounts by the attackers.
- There have been reported cases of cybercriminals using the online Ad industry to distribute malware attacks on the internet. The attackers use a method called malvertising to distribute malware through ad networks.
Top 3 Reasons why creators need a cyber insurance
- Just about all industries are at risk of cybercrime
Cybercriminals are going after small and large businesses of all industries as long it’s of value to them. Most of the creators’ work involves online platforms or software, thus making them an immediate target by cybercriminals. In fact, the internet and other technological advancements have made it easier and possible for cyber attacks to occur.
Small businesses are among the key industries cybercriminals are targeting because they know that small businesses have fewer protective measures against cyber threats. Statistics show that one out of five small businesses falls victim to cybercrime.
Are you a content creator who has faced attempted cyber attacks on your businesses?
- Cybercriminals are after all types of data
Any data the disposal of cybercriminals is of high value to them. They can use even the less relevant data in any way possible to attack their target. The data they aim for most are financial information, personal profiling information, sensitive files, corporate data, and access to systems.
Any creator of any kind has at least one of the above data. Cybercriminals will want to access your and that of clients’ payment details, any sensitive data you have in your cloud or hard disks, your logins, etc. Generally, any creator is prone to cyber threats in one way or another because they have data essential to cybercriminals want. However, acquiring cyber liability insurance is an effective proactive measure you should consider to protect yourself as a creator or a related business.
- Recovering from cybercrime is not cheap
Reports show that 60% of small businesses close within six months after a data breach or cyber attack. It’s because of a higher cost of operational disruption and altered business practices; thus, your business is left struggling and down.
What if you have an insurance policy that covers cyber security issues of your business? Probably, it would be easy to get back to business without much strain. In addition, you would enjoy other benefits such as incident response and forensic analysis by cyber security experts.
Cyber insurance is a critical insurance policy you should consider for your business as a creator. Also, remember that cyber-attacks are not predictable, and cybercriminals often try to get loopholes to execute sophisticated attacks on their targets to benefit themselves.
Final Thought
As you can tell from the above scenarios, cybercriminals are determined to go after creators of all types in all industries. Simply because creators have data and digital resources that are of value to them once they gain access.
Therefore, you should take proactive measures to protect yourself against unforeseen cyber threats as a creator. Getting cyber insurance is one of the effective ways you should think of. It can significantly help you mitigate such risks and protect your business.
Mindaro is working hard to address and support all the needs of a small business’ safety by partnering with top tier carriers, providing affordable, easy, flexible and understandable commercial insurance policies that will help protect your business from the major risks out there. We support only 100% digital underwriting, leaving pen, paper and redundant broker communications in the past, positioning our customers happiness as our top priority. For more information, please visit us at mindaro.io