Brokers looking for more information to convince commercial clients of the value of cyber liability coverage can point to the latest account hack over the weekend.
Bell Canada says 22,400 of its small business customers have had their account information compromised by hackers, following a breach of usernames and passwords when a third-party supplier based in Ottawa, Ont., had its systems hacked.
The hacking group calling itself Nullcrew is claiming credit for the attack, and tweeted a link to the data early Saturday. Twitter postings by the Nullcrew account suggest the supplier's network may have been compromised nearly three weeks ago.
"Successful day hacking Internet service providers is successful,'' the group tweeted on Jan. 14.
The incident reflects the growing number of attacks on businesses and client information, Scott Sleightholm, a commercial account executive at Smith Petrie Carr & Scott Insurance Brokers, told Insurance Business. And the more news items posted on cyber hacking, the better, to help convince clients that they do indeed need coverage.
“It is something that they need. Do I seem more businesses taking it? No,” says Sleightholm. “A lot of businesses are still, ‘I don’t need that, we have certain protocols;’ or ‘that will never happen to me.’ Cyber liability is a big, big concern from a brokers’ standpoint. It is a huge exposure, and we’re trying to upsell it.” (continued.)
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According to a statement from Bell, five valid credit card numbers were included in the information dump.
The telecom giant reassured customers that the affected account passwords had been frozen, and that it is contacting customers and credit card companies whose information had been compromised.
Bell says its own systems were not hacked, and that its residential, mobility and enterprise customers are not affected.
The company says it is working with the unidentified third-party supplier along with ''law enforcement and government security officials'' to investigate the attack.
