Insurance Agents Fight Back Against Cyber Attacks Via Email
The best part of being an independent agent is the ability to represent as many companies as you choose. The downside of a large portfolio is all those emails from multiple companies!
If you see the attacks on NASA, Colonial Pipeline, various hospitals and insurance companies — don’t think that your agency is too small to be attacked. It’s just a matter of time. The attack is coming and the only question is how much are you willing to spend to get control of your company back?
I wish I was able to share with you all the agents and agencies that I personally know of that have been attacked. They had had to pay as little as $5k to millions. One of my closest FMO friends had to pay just under $50k.
What you can do today to minimize the risk to your agency?
- Invest in some software such as Threat Protector or KnowBe4
2. Hold annual training with your staff so they never open any email or click on any link that they are not 100% sure of the authenticity. There are great free training videos online you can use.
3. Secret Shop your staff! Send them bogus emails, requests and links from unknown emails and see who opens them. This is critical. All the major attacks come from the lowest level end-user.
4. This is the easiest and fastest thing you can implement: Stop unsubscribing from junk emails. Yes, you read that right. These hackers are smart. They know you’ve trained your staff not to click on suspicious links so they send something harmless from Target or Home Depot but the link to unsubscribe is malware. If you click on it, you could let them into your system!
Plan for the day you come in are locked out of your computer system. Have a plan because one day you will probably need it!
Contact your marketing team at Gordon Marketing if you’d like to attend our Agency Builder Workshop which covers cybersecurity and much more for insurance company agency owners of all sizes 800–388–8342 www.gordonmarketing.com
