Lulz Security, commonly abbreviated as LulzSec strikes another high-profile website and this time it is India’s Rajya Sabha official website. They claim to breach in to BJP President and Rajya Sabha member Amit Shah’s account which otherwise require a login through username and password. To validate the same, they posted a screenshot revealing several details of the ruling party’s president. The attack again highlights the weak and under-competent IT infrastructure handled by National Informatics Centre which manages websites and data of state and central government departments, union territories and over 600 district administrations.

Considering the above stated facts, it is unarguable that government firms are equally prone to such attacks which directly or indirectly affects its dependents i.e. citizens. In order to safeguard them, government institutions have the only option of going for Cyber Insurance Policy to minimize monetary losses, if incurred, shielding the government body at stake as well its stakeholders.

A Cyber Insurance Policy is a dynamic product changing as per the requirements considering the sophistication and type of trends of cyber attacks. Few of the vital risks a Cyber Insurance Policy provides are as follows:

First party cover includes:

• Loss or corruption of data through network security breach, unauthorised use of the computer system, computer virus, human error, or accidental damage or destruction of data media
• Business income and extra expense cover, which helps a company to survive the impact of loss of business income through a failure in the computer systems.
• Crisis management and notification costs, with coverage including the cost of hiring expert assistance to mitigate the effect of the incident – and the costs of notifying relevant parties in the event of a data breach.

Third party cover includes:

• Costs liable to pay to others as a result of trading electronically or of storing or using data electronically
• Damages or costs incurred through disparagement, plagiarism or infringement perpetrated through computer systems or websites
• Liabilities from breach of privacy or confidentiality
• Transmission of virus or a denial of service attack

Optionally, cover can be extended to include regulation defence, fines and penalties, and contractual liability.

Reference- http://www.csoonline.in