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These scenarios help illustrate the value of cyber coverage and cyber incident response services: The following are two recent cyber claims scenarios drawn from actual claims against CPA firms.

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Cyber and professional liability insurance and loss prevention are the best defenses for the firm. Since it is unlikely that they will be able to do so from the hackers, they might seek to hold the firm accountable, even if the firm is not at fault (i.e., the hacking occurred on their end). Your clients will want to recoup their losses from hacking. To that end, itвЂ™s critical to obtain strong, well-designed insurance coverage and breach response services. A number of companies provide excellent, secure web portal services.Д®ven if a firm is careful about protecting its clientsвЂ™ data, it might still be held legally liable for any data loss from hacking and other cyberattacks. It also will lower your staffвЂ™s administrative burden by reducing their processing, sorting and filing work, and important electronic documents will be much harder to misplace in extended email threads.

#Blackhat cpa software news archive

Cybersecurity experts are also valuable resources.ДЄnother recommended step is to acquire a secure client web portal that will archive and store your clientsвЂ™ personal documents and data.

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A firm should keep all of its software current with security updates, and install and run software patches recommended by security experts on a regular basis (e.g., Microsoft has вЂњPatch TuesdayвЂќ every week).

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To add more layers of security, a firm-first and foremost-should encrypt every single device and make sure each device has basic anti-virus and anti-malware software installed and configured to update automatically. Hacking into a machine that runs Windows XP or unpatched operating systems and does not have basic cybersecurity software is easy for an inexperienced hacker and even easier for an experienced вЂњblack hat.вЂќ Most hackers who target small businesses do so because the amount of time and effort required is minimal. But small firms might not invest in the cybersecurity awareness training necessary to educate their employees on the ever-present dangers, such as clicking on links or attachments found in emails, downloading malware through insecure websites on the internet or on social media, or responding to requests for information from socially engineered emails designed to scare a person or tap into their desire for a good deal. Social engineering continues to be a problem, no matter the size of the firm.

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Small businesses can reduce this risk by upgrading to newer, more secure operating systems and automating their patch management.

Such systems provide an easy target for hackers since Microsoft no longer creates security patches for these systems and the vulnerabilities are well known by вЂњblack hatвЂќ hackers. For example, many small businesses use operating systems such as Windows XP or Vista.

Small businesses often have outdated, unpatched software that can be exploited at the operating system level.

Furthermore, web-based email products may be easily exploited their flaws are widely known because of the ubiquity of major email services.

Email storage may be unencrypted and, thus, not secure.

There are three main reasons why small businesses are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks: Often, the firms are woefully unprepared for the resulting breach and significant risk exposure due to the disclosure of client confidential information. Hackers regularly use Google Maps and Yelp to find local, independent CPA firms and then scan the networks of selected firms electronically to determine their vulnerabilities.

Instead, they go after relatively unprotected or vulnerable вЂњsoftвЂќ targets in the form of smaller firms. However, institutional companies have the resources to install much more layered and effective cybersecurity protections so that less sophisticated hackers, working on their own or in small groups, donвЂ™t have the expertise to successfully attack such big targets. вЂњWhy would anyone try to take advantage of a three-CPA tax preparation practice when a Deloitte or PwC may have a much larger pool of resources to exploit?вЂќ the thinking went. To date, this trend continues as recent cyber claims experience shows an increase in the frequency of CPA firm cyber-related incidents requiring incident response services such as data recovery, IT forensics, legal counsel, public relations, client notification services, credit monitoring and identity theft assistance.ДЇor years, many smaller firms reasoned that they were too small and their information too insignificant for a hacker to want to exploit. Industry data has long indicated that small- and mid-sized CPA firms are just as vulnerable to cyberattacks and data security breaches as larger organizations.