Access Premier Protect – Frequently Asked Questions

A data breach is an intentional, accidental, or suspected act that results in a release, or possible release, of private, confidential information.   This information may include consumer, employee, business, or other information that falls under any of the 50 state breach notification laws, HIPAA, HITECH Act Data Breach Rule, and/or revised 2022 FTC Red Flags Rule.

Why should you care?  You are legally responsible to safely maintain current and former consumer and employee data and failing to do so can result in civil and even criminal penalties.  You may also have proprietary information that is valuable.  The loss or theft of any of this data could be costly to your business and personal reputation and may result in lost revenue and profits.

Everyone is at risk, and your business could be a target. According to the 2023 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report/ITRC 2024 Report:

• 90% increase in data compromised records Q1 2024 over Q1 2023  (ITRC 2024 Q1 Report)
• 74% of breaches involved the Human Element, via Social Attacks, Errors and Misuse (Verizon 2023).
• 50% of social engineering incidents are Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks (Verizon 2023)
• 590% increase in data being exposed in emails & correspondence, as data compromises related to system & human errors more than tripled in 2023 (ITRC 2023)

Data is valuable and criminals know it. Not only Fortune 500 companies are targets, but cybercriminals are also becoming more focused on attacking small to midsize businesses that do not have the financial and IT resources available that large companies have to protect themselves.

Most large breach events occur due to the failure of an individual, not necessarily network security. As demonstrated by the Ponemon Institute 2023 Report, 65 to 75% of data loss occurs due to the intentional or accidental actions of an insider, commonly known as the “insider threat” or “social engineering”.  Additionally, your network may not be as secure as Chase, Equifax, Home Depot, Labcorp, Marriott, Target, The White House and the Office of Personnel Management, all of which have fallen victim to data breaches.

An insider threat is when a current or former employee, contractor or vendor accidentally or intentionally participates or allows a data breach to occur.  It is estimated that 1 in 6 employees looks for opportunities to take advantage of or steal from their employer; add these statistics to the number of employes that may commit an unintentional mistake and you can see that the insider threat is significant.

Cyber Liability insurance pays for some of the costs associated with a data breach; however, cyber insurance has many exclusions in limitations in planning and preparation.  Access Premier Protect offers a more expansive tool kit than most cyber policies for businesses seeking to maximize cyber protection and preparedness.  This will help your business limit its exposure to fines, penalties and class action lawsuits.

Please review your business insurance with your insurance broker.  However, most Business Owner Policies (BOP) and General Liability (GL) insurance policies have many exclusions or will not cover a data breach event at all.  If any cyber insurance coverage is offered it may have limitations, exclusions, and may not provide free ID recovery & credit monitoring coverage for up to 50,000 victims.

In the event of a data breach event, we are prepared and ready to assist you to get through the event including:

• We provide ID theft/fraud recovery and credit monitoring services for up to 50,000 victims
• We provide direct access to an experienced cybersecurity attorney from Jackson Lewis to immediately establish attorney-client privilege. The Jackson Lewis attorney will:
  • assist in crafting the messaging for both the media and internally so all employees are aware and are consistent in communicating the same message.
  • support response for the state and federal breach laws to affected individuals and businesses.
• We provide access to forensics experts to guide you through your cyber security data breach response.

You could attempt to manage the event yourself. However, responding to a data breach event is a complex and extremely time-sensitive process, requiring you to navigate a patchwork of state and federal laws and regulations with very specific responses required at timely intervals.  According to the 2023 IBM Breach Report, it takes organizations an average of 204 days to identify a data breach and 73 days to contain it.  It has been reported that 60% of small businesses who experience a data breach will go “out of business” within 6 months.

We are the experts with cyber lawyers to guide and manage the proper response more efficiently and quickly; let us take care of the breach event details, so you can focus on your business.

We are able to provide a timely, valuable and comprehensive cybersecurity program at a low and reasonable cost due to the fact that we launch our services in a group strategy to achieve economies of scale.  We utilize highly qualified partners and service providers who work with thousands of businesses throughout the United States to further leverage volume discounts for a maximum value proposition to bring our clients.

Every Member Company is eligible for the Access Premier Protect benefit.  Upon receipt of the Enrollment notification the Plan Member will be instructed via email to activate their Access Premier Protect Portal & Monitoring Services.  Activation is not mandatory to receive Breach Response and Employee FMR benefit services. Visit the Access website for additional information about the Premier Protect service.

Access Premier Protect Benefits begin on the effective date of the Access Premier Protect Program Enrollment and Welcome email received by the member company. The benefit period continues for the Plan Member Company, including, without limitation, any renewal terms, if applicable, until the Plan Member Company no longer utilizes the services of Access via an Opt-Out form , or when any open cases with the Service Provider are concluded.