PAGE 39
LOUISIANAAGENT
HOW DO I KNOW IF MY AGENCY IS CYBER-SECURE? Independent insurance agencies, as holders of critical personally-identifiable information (PII), truly are the target of cyber criminals – These nefarious entities have long ago stopped 'shotgunning' across all businesses, and now focus on those that they know have the valuable data from which they can sell and profit. And the pandemic has not slowed their focus – by October of 2020, the number of records exposed reached a
staggering 37 billion records increasing by 141% from 2019*. Even more concerning - the Finance & Insurance sector grew to be the third most targeted of all industries, accounting for over 12% of all breaches. This is ahead of Manufacturing, Retail, Education.
email compromise, spoofing, the list goes on.
All this considered, we need to take this focus on our industry seriously; we need to prepare and prevent incursions as best possible. ACT is your partner in providing insights, education, real resources, and links to There is certainly no shortage industry cyber service of news and confusion around providers to help your agency cybercrime – insurance be as cyber-ready as possible. company data breaches, independent insurance agency ransomware attacks, business
Continued on page 31