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Purchasing insurance is nothing new to us, both in our personal lives and at work. Basically, we buy insurance to minimize our risk and transfer potential losses to an insurance company to which we pay premiums. We can insure our home, vehicle or health care individually, or we can select an umbrella policy to provide additional liability insurance to cover claims exceeding our regular coverage. In some instances, carrying insurance is required by law.

For colleges and universities, insurance companies typically provide coverage for general liability, property, employee liability and employment process liability. However, the insurance landscape is quickly changing as higher education becomes an attractive target for hackers to steal personally identifiable information (PII) and important research data. In addition, institutions are increasingly falling victim to phishing and ransomware attacks. As a result, the insurance portfolio for many higher education institutions now includes cybersecurity insurance (CSI), and it’s becoming an integral part of the overall insurance strategy for universities and colleges worldwide. Just as forensic investigators attempt to solve cases through lab science in the popular TV drama “CSI,” higher education now needs to research, investigate and position their campuses to obtain cybersecurity insurance to protect their institution, data and employee actions to avoid potential costs and losses due to cyber crime.

As higher education continues to monitor potential threats and strengthen their cybersecurity posture, they must also prepare their environments to be “cyber-insurable.”

Katherine Mayer, associate vice president for information security at the University of Wisconsin, emphasizes, “The nature of higher education demands a collaborative, teaching, learning and research environment routinely based on an open, shared technology. This demand is often at odds with tight security controls. Additionally, the threat is becoming more sophisticated and agile, and the frequency of cyber attacks is on the rise. Many institutions of higher education are pursuing coverage for their cyber liability insurance to focus on catastrophic event(s) that might occur.”

In some ways, higher education can take clues from corporate business, which has embraced the need for cyber insurance to ensure they are protected. Bob Turner, field CISO for higher education at the cybersecurity firm Fortinet, says, “Larger corporations often have more business rules and increasing challenges in meeting compliance requirements. They also see the value proposition connected to a well-run cybersecurity program.” Turner points out the importance of higher education making cyber risk a business imperative. He states, “Security should be woven together into a fabric that protects institutional resources and people by using tools engineered to work together.”</…….

Source: https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/higher-ed-cybersecurity-insurance-are-you-in-good-hands