With Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the holiday season coming into full swing, it is important to remember that there are unfortunately nefarious people lurking around the internet. Our guest today is Neal Jardine, and he share switch us some tips to be cyber safer in our business, especially during this busy holiday season.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Be proactive with your protecting your organization’s data following the 4 steps Neal recommended.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- You can visit our guest’s website at: https://boxxinsurance.com/
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- Follow our guest on social:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/nealjardine/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/boxxinsurance/
- https://www.facebook.com/BOXXInsuranceInc/
- https://www.instagram.com/boxxinsurance/
- https://twitter.com/BoxxInsurance
- https://www.youtube.com/@boxxinsurance
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Neal is the Global Cyber Risk Intelligence and Claims Director for BOXX Insurance. He is a recognized leader internationally, in the complexities of responding to cyber attacks including ransomware negotiation, privacy breach and data loss. Neal has adjusted insured and uninsured losses arising from over 400 cyber attacks and breaches internationally, including Asia, United States, Canada and Europe. A recognized expert he has presented to brokers, business leaders and insurers on issues related to cyber insurance and cyber risk management, assisting a wide range of industries, in their understanding of pre and post loss management and response to cyber events.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
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If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFoure, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And before we get too deep into the episode today, I just want to say thank you to you, dear listener. And just thank you for being here each and every week or as often as you happen to be, and for sharing this with others. Thanksgiving’s my favorite holiday, and I just want to give thanks to you, the loyal listener, for being here with me on this journey, and being with us as we’re going through this business expansion together. So, just a great thank you, appreciate you, and just I’m so thankful for our time together.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:45):
And with the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and holiday season coming into full swing, it’s important to remember that unfortunately there are nefarious people lurking around, especially on the internet. And so, our guest today is Neal Jardine. And he shares with us some tips to be cyber safer in our business, especially during this busy holiday season.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:09):
Now, Neal is the Global Cyber Risk Intelligence and Claims Director for BOXX Insurance. He’s a recognized leader internationally in the complexities of responding to cyber attacks, including ransomware negotiation, privacy breach, and data loss. Neal has adjusted in insured and uninsured losses arising from over 400 cyber attacks and breaches all over the world, including Asia, the United States, Canada, and Europe. He’s a recognized expert and is presented to brokers, business leaders, and insurers on the issues related to cyber insurance and cyber risk management, assisting with a wide range of industries. You’re going to love our interview and the tips and suggestions that Neal provides to us. So, let’s go ahead and jump right into our interview.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (01:52):
I’m Neal Jardine, I’m the Claims and Risk Intelligence Director of BOXX Insurance. We’re a cyber MGA.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:58):
Excellent. Well, part of the reason I wanted to have you on was to talk about this whole concept of cybersecurity, the importance of insurance in this space, and just how that’s evolved over the years, especially recently.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (02:13):
Yeah, cyber has involved a lot in the last, if you look at it, it’s been around since the seventies, cyber insurance. But really it’s evolved because now in the last probably 10 years, you’re getting standalone cyber insurance policies. People have identified that cyber risks or threats are certainly something you can’t just cover with an add-on or endorsement policy for just data. You need robust coverage for privacy, for ransomware, for data extortion, and so on and so forth. Even online liabilities associated with just generally business activities.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (02:45):
So cyber certainly has evolved in the last number of years, and the good part is now it’s seen as one tool in a cybersecurity toolbox. You can’t just rely on risk transfer. You look at it and say, “Okay, these are the tools I’m going to do myself as an organization. And then I’m going to backstop all that with insurance.” So, cyber insurance certainly has evolved and stuff. And now it’s in the forefront of a lot of risk managers’ minds.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (03:10):
Very interesting. Well, one thing I think about, most of the clients that we serve and work with in our space is the small to midsize business clientele. And so I’m wondering, is this a big business problem only?
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (03:24):
No, I love that question. It is certainly not a big business problem. Small to midsize businesses, the issue with small to midsize businesses is their targets of opportunity. So if you think about a cyber or criminal organization driving around a neighborhood looking for a weak lock, that’s what they’re doing on the internet. They’re just scanning the internet, constantly looking for weak vulnerabilities within organizations. And the problem with small to midsize businesses is, if they have an open port or a weak password, they get that automated attack that goes in and can cripple them as a network. So small to midsize businesses, it is certainly a problem with them and they’re targets of opportunity.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (04:04):
Whereas larger organizations, cyber criminals will target them because they know they have information that is valuable, it can be resold, or because they can extort them for a lot of money. A small business, it’s not about the information they have and the value to everybody else in the world. It’s about the value of that information to that business. So if I’m a cyber criminal and I can encrypt that information, I can say to you how much to get your information back, and that’s the value of it. So, there’s still value in that information for small businesses.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (04:36):
And the other problem too, small businesses, God love them, the backbone of our economy. They are certainly targets of, they don’t have robust cybersecurity plans. So often, cybersecurity may not be on the forefront of every single employee’s mind.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (04:53):
Clients we work with very often, they don’t have a technology department, an IT department, people or a whole person dedicated to thinking about that. Very often, it’s maybe the owner or a general manager or an assistant manager at the company that’s also wearing a couple hats as maybe head of HR and head of payroll and things like that. So, how do you work with companies like that or how can you see this kind of program that you offer support a small business?
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (05:22):
What we do in terms of cyber insurance is very different than large carriers. We’re designed, built, and bred for that small to midsize business. So what we offer actually is, in addition to insurance, we offer a lot of security tools and cyber assistance. So once you’re onboard, you get access to our virtual chief information security group, basically VCSO group. You get access to our forensic folks, if you have any questions or issues. And we also don’t penalize you if you phone us up and say, “I think I have a claim.” We’ll generally waive the deductible, if you do it within 24 hours. And we’ll also give you some free advice and free assistance before you make the claim.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (05:57):
The idea is, we all know what to do when we get in a car accident. We often don’t know what to do when a cyber attack happens. We know that small businesses, like you said, they’re wearing multiple hats, they don’t have a robust IT. That’s where we come in. So, we don’t want to penalize you for phoning us.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (06:12):
I would love it if every small business out there had a cyber incident response plan with a very robust thing and tested every couple months. They don’t. Let’s be frank. That’s where we come in. Something happens, you’re going to phone us, we’re your cyber incident response plan. We’re going to be there to handhold you through the process, right? We’re we’re not going to say, “Your policy’s there. Make a claim against it.” No, we’re going to give you the vendors you need. We’re going to guide you on the steps. We’re going to triage what happened. We’re going to come up with a plan and then we’re going to deal with it and execute it.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (06:44):
So yeah, it’s a different way of looking at insurance. We are definitely built for the small businesses. We are not built for the large billion-dollar companies who have robust IT groups and stuff. We’re designed to help those small folks be able to get through the process as quick as possible, and get them back on their feet.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (07:01):
One thing I always think about is prevention. And in preparing for this, I was watching a video, I believe maybe on your website or something that came through. And it was just talking about how one employee’s lost password or one employee clicking on an email, maybe that has some malware or virus hanging in there. And all of a sudden, your company is now open or susceptible. So, talk through that. And maybe if you have an example or a use case or two you could share.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (07:30):
We actually had a small business. The one employee thought they were getting something transferred in their family. They actually thought their father was sending them, I think it was images of the family. Turns out, it wasn’t. It was a cyber criminal doing a phishing attack. They downloaded what they thought was a zip with some pictures in it. It actually had malware in it, which involved a keystroke logger, so it logged what they punched into the computer.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (07:53):
Of course, that finance person went to the corporate bank account website to do some online banking, like we all do, if you’re in finance. And it sent those details to cyber criminal. Then the cyber criminal immediately started transferring money out of that bank account. So there you go, where the small business was just operating, they’re doing it. But because you’re a small business, you had that one employee who thought, “You know what? I’m going to use my business email account to also do personal.” And then of course, the cyber criminals tricked them into downloading the keystroke logger and installing it.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (08:26):
So yeah, that’s certainly a case where the client ended up with something because of the fact that employee didn’t pay attention to employee training. Number one, don’t use your personal one for work. Number two, don’t download files that you don’t know what they are. Most of our stuff will come through from people we know. So yeah, that one lapse. We always joke that it doesn’t matter how strong your security is, if you have one employee who just doesn’t care about cybersecurity, there’s your weakest link. So, fix that.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (08:57):
What are maybe a few best practices you can share, just as maybe a nugget or a takeaway or two, on how to reduce this kind of exposure?
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (09:07):
So first, partner with a cyber insurance company that takes security beyond just providing you the policy. There’s lots of services within cyber insurance. Make sure you utilize those. They’re free, they’re available. I always compare it to a lot of credit cards we have. It has all those services and you end up just using the credit card. So cyber insurance has a ton of services, make sure you utilize them, number one.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (09:30):
Number two, do the low hanging fruit. MFA, have a backup of everything that’s stored separately and securely. Patch things, like even if you’re a small business, have Windows update on, have your updates going and such, so that’s nice and secure. And lastly, throw some training in there for employees and talk about cybersecurity. Talk about how you’re going to make sure they do certain steps before doing a fund transfer. You’re going to never ask them to go out and buy something for them.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (10:00):
And actually, I’ll add one more step. Let your clients know that you’re never going to change your banking information over an email. You’re never going to send them an email and say, “Hey, I have new payment information. Can you please wire it to a new account?” ‘Cause that’s what cyber criminals do. We recommend to our clients, they actually come up with a policy around not changing banking information without making a phone call to a number they have on file for the client. And they also tell their clients do the same thing. And some even go one step further and put it in the bottom of their finance emails to say, “We will never ask you to change banking information over an email, without making a phone call to a number you have on file for us.” Because the number one cyber attack out there is financial crime and fraud. They’re causing invoices and payments to get detoured to new places. So I guess that’s my final one and probably actually my strongest. Come up with a financial crime and fraud policy.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (10:55):
Great suggestion. And same with the others that you recommended there. Neal, one of the things we always like to do, and we ask every guest the same four questions before they go. And the first question we like to ask is, have you had a miss or two in your career or journey and something you learned from it?
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (11:10):
I don’t have necessarily a miss slash loss, but I came out of university as a computer programmer slash network tech. And I always thought I’d get into insurance and then I’d go back and build software for insurance ’cause I’d have a really good understanding of it. And I guess my loss is I never got back to that. And sometimes I go, “I’d be a great computer programmer or technology person building insurance software, ’cause I understand it so well.” So yeah, kind of a miss a loss there. Sometimes they think back and go, “Man, I wish I went back.”, but I also really enjoy what I do.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (11:45):
Thanks for sharing and let’s talk about a make or a highlight.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (11:49):
A highlight was 2015, I think I got my first cyber loss in. My boss was like, “Hey, Neal, you know how to handle a cyber claim, insurance claim?” And I said, yes. And I think that was probably the biggest win ’cause it changed my career from doing property claims and tunnel boring machines and construction sites to nothing but cyber insurance, dealing with cyber attacks and so on, ever since. And I consider a win because I’ve loved my career ever since. I really enjoy what I do. There’s a lot of frustrating parts to it, obviously when you’re paying criminals and you see an attack that’s easily avoidable. But definitely a win was, I think it was 2015 or ’16 when I made that decision to tell my boss, “Yeah, I know how to handle these things. You’re in good hands.”
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:34):
Wonderful. Well, let’s talk about a multiplier that you’ve used to grow yourself personally or professionally.
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (12:41):
I think it’s probably about reaching out to people. I know that I get busy in my day, like everyone else, but it’s good to just reach out to people and check in once in a while and say, “Hey, how are you doing?” And don’t forget to tell people you appreciate what they do. We often think that people know that we appreciate what they do, but they often don’t or it’s just nice to hear. So, I think definitely a multiplier for me is my network of people that I work with and that I have in my personal life, reaching out to them, chatting with them, relying on them, getting information from them and so on. So that information, I guess, advice and so on. So that would be my biggest thing, definitely around people, letting them know you appreciate them, making sure you stay in contact with them, make sure you have a good network of folks around you.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (13:26):
The final question we’d like to ask every guest, Neal, is what does success mean to you?
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (13:32):
Success means to me, just being happy in what I do. I’m really fortunate. I enjoy what I do every day. There are very few days I wake up when I’m not ready to go to work. Most of them are because the sun’s out, the hills are covered in snow, or the fish are ready to be caught. So success for me is really just enjoying your career, having a good family life, having a nice work-life balance, and enjoying the time you get to do your hobbies. So I think I’ve been quite successful in life so far, and I’m really enjoying it.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:00):
Wonderful. Well, as we bring this to a close, is there anything you were hoping to share or get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
Neal Jardine, BOXX Insurance (14:07):
MFA, backups, financial, make sure you have a financial policy. Just be cyber safe out there. Reach out to your insurance company, folks like myself. I wish, if I could, I would get the entire world on one phone call and talk about a few cyber controls that will keep us all protected. And I really appreciate folks like yourself doing podcasts like this, because I’m hoping that we can make the world a little cyber safer.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:32):
Neal, thank you so much for a fantastic interview and let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. So takeaway number one is when Neal talked about cyber risks requiring its own specialty insurance. So, it’s just something for you to talk about with your current insurance broker or an organization like Neal or any other provider out there, to see if this might make sense for your business.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:56):
Takeaway number two is when he talked about cyber risk with these digital cyber thieves or criminals out there and how they attack small business. And he said that the value of the small business, the information that they take is not valuable to the mass market or to the actual cyber thief. It’s actually valuable to you, the small business leader. That information is important to you and therefore, it can be used as a ransom. So, that’s something that I did not recognize or know about.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (15:28):
Takeaway number three is how these cyber criminals can quickly or unknowingly get into your system. And he said, “Well, how does this happen to small business?” He gave that great example of the one employee of a customer he was helping with that was waiting for a wire transfer from a family member. And it turned out that the wire transfer that she clicked on was actually some kind of virus or something that the cyber criminal was able to get into the system. And so his suggestion was, “Don’t download files from someone you don’t know and don’t click on links from emails you don’t know.”, just as a simple takeaway.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (16:00):
And now it’s time for today’s win-win.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (16:07):
So today’s win-win is when Neal talked about four things you can do to help protect your business from these types of cyber attacks. Number one, he said, “Make sure you utilize some type of cyber insurance and use the services they offer. There are other things besides just the insurance to help your business out.” Number two is make sure you have a backup of everything. This way then, if someone were to take your information, you would have a backup and they wouldn’t be able to hold that ransom against you. And he said, “Patch things up.”
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (16:37):
Number three was to provide training for your team and company on best practices, for example, not clicking on these links and other things like that. And number four is he said, “Let your clients know that you’re never going to change banking information or request different payment information outside of your standard way of doing so.” He said, “A great suggestion is to create some kind of a policy in your company and make it very clear in communicating that to your customers and clients.”
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (17:04):
And so, that’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to having you back next week.
