Hartford Group Offers Data Breach Insurance For Small Businesses

Posted 09/22/2011 at 9:56am | by Brad Chacos

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After a hot and heavy summer – whew! – things are starting to cool down a bit on the nefarious hacker front. But even though LulzSec and Anonymous have chilled out in the wake of numerous arrests, the lesson remains: almost no website is safe against a skilled and dedicated hacker. Wait! Take off that tinfoil hat! While small business owners will still need to deal with the embarrassment of a successful hack attack, they won’t need to sweat the monetary fallout if they jump on the new SMB data breach insurance being offered by Hartford insurance.

The data breach coverage can only be added as an optional amendment to Hartford’s “Spectrum” insurance policy for small businesses. The plan covers the expenses of responding to a data breach, including all PR and notification costs, as well as legal defense and liability costs stemming from a hack attack. Plus, Hartford includes access to a breach preparedness informational website and consultative services as part of the cost of the plan.

While this may take some of the heat – real or imagined – off of small business owners, there are other implications as well; will businesses take information security seriously if the owner can just shrug his shoulders and say “Eh, don’t worry, we’re covered,” rather than hiring pricey IT specialists to shore up database defenses?