Cyber insurance a potential fix for OpenSSL vulnerabilities

The on-going OpenSSL vulnerabilities drama, which began with Heartbleed in April, doesn’t seem to be slowing down thanks to the software being open source.

As recently as the fifth of this month saw the latest OpenSSL vulnerabilities announced, which includes one that enables cyber criminals to run  arbitrary code on devices with weaknesses and another that allows ‘man-in-the-middle’ attacks.

Such vulnerabilities, like Heartbleed, are an example that a sole focus on technological methods is not the way to eradicate cyber risk.

One law firm based in Europe and the UK believes cyber security insurance to be one possible answer, as it resolves vulnerabilities exposed by OpenSSL code.

The US Department of Justice approximates that somewhere from 500,000 to 1,000,000 computers were affected by the GameOver Zeus malware, which has thus far managed to cause losses to both businesses and consumers amounting to more than £60m.

As technology isn’t capable of single-handedly resolving the problem, Hunton and Williams LLP recommends that any approach in combatting cyber risk should ideally include an analysis of insurance and other risk transfer mechanisms.

Whilst handling such widespread issues is a work in progress, businesses should be as prepared as they can be to not only tighten up any existing vulnerabilities, but also to respond to any that have been exposed by cyber criminals. By making cyber security jobs available, businesses are not only recognising that something needs to be done; they are taking the kind of pro-active approach that could potentially save them a substantial headache.