There may be folks who may take a look at everything going on in the world of cyber and say, well it hasn't happened to me yet, so I am okay with continuing on as I have been. Let’s take a look at the consequences.

Assuming that you do not experience a cyber incident in the next few months, here is what you can expect to happen. 

1. Your insurance will be canceled. The insurance industry has wised up and decided to work with businesses that are taking preventative measures. This is similar to your car insurance. If you drive around running into cars, speeding or generally driving recklessly, your car insurance is canceled or the premiums rise steeply. No one wants to insure a business that behaves recklessly. Soon we will see changes in insurance and state requirements.

2. You may lose contracts or insurance partners. Businesses are increasingly wary to do business with folks who are not taking measures to protect themselves. Cyber incidents often spread between services and businesses, so if you are not taking measures to protect your business, you may be putting others at risk. This is already the case with government contracts where you must be certified that you are taking the right steps.

3. You may lose clients or reputation. Clients are now wary to work with businesses that have suffered a cyber attack. There are clients who are questioning businesses about their cyber security practices. There are already security scores on larger businesses that are public and this will become part of your digital profile. 

But what happens if like the 7.5% of customers we have worked with, you do have a cyber attack? The biggest questions are what have you put in place to prepare for this attack, how many days will you be out of business and what is this going to cost you?

The cost of a cyber attack come down to the following factors:

• How many days is your business closed?

• How many records were stolen?

• What are the fines from the HHS?

• How many lawsuits are filed against you?

• Do you have insurance? Have you lied about anything on your insurance?

• Do you have all of the supporting evidence to support your insurance and HHS/NIST requirements?

• Did you need to pay a ransom?

• How many hours of forensics did it take to verify for the government how many records were stolen?

• Did the FBI get involved?

• Did you need to upgrade your PC/Server in the middle of all of this?

• How many hours does it take to restore or upgrade your network?

After all of that, the next biggest question will be, did your insurance cover it all? The average cost of a cyber attack on a dental office is between $250,000 and a million dollars. Wouldn’t prevention be cheaper? We are here to help. Contact us today to set up an appointment to start protecting your valuable business today.

What if prevention saved you just a portion of the costs? What if preparation allowed for an easy payment from your insurance company? All of these questions are the reality of business today. We have options every day, but are you willing to gamble your business on these odds?