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Electronic Data Breaches
In recent years, incidents involving the theft or inadvertent disclosure of significant amounts of electronic data containing personal information have been increasing and have frequently been heavily publicized. Often, a large, public data breach is followed by a flurry of litigation as individuals, banks, and other entities affected sue the company that suffered the breach for not protecting the compromised data more effectively. The company targeted by such claims will often look to its insurance program for coverage for the defense of such lawsuits and any resulting awards. While some companies carry specialty insurance policies that are specifically designed to afford coverage for data-breach-related liability, in many cases the breached company will lack such specialized coverage, and may look to tender the defense of data-breach-related litigation under its general liability policy.
The Rise of Electronic Data Breaches
Recent studies of data breaches confirm they are increasing in number, size, and related costs. Identity Theft Resource Center Jan. 2, 2009 Report. See www.idtheftcenter.org. While paper sources of information are still subject to inadvertent or malicious disclosures, the growth of electronically collected, transmitted, and stored information has resulted in an increasing number of electronic data breaches. Id. The report stated that electronic breaches comprised 82.3% of breaches, and paper breaches comprised 17.7%. As the frequency and severity of data breaches have grown, so too have grown the potential exposures to companies when the data that they store or transmit become compromised, both from their own costs of addressing and responding to breaches, and from third-party claims. The total average cost of a data breach grew in 2009 to $204 per record compromised, with the average total cost per company of more than $6.75 million. Ponemon Institute, LLC, 2009 Annual Study: Cost of a Data Breach. While data breaches can and do occur due to inadvertent loss and disclosure of information, as often occurs when laptops are lost, many of the large publicized data breaches have been caused by deliberate intrusions into company databases by cyber criminals. Verizon Business RISK Team, 2009 Data Breach Investigations Report, cites hacking as the leading cause of data breaches; see http://securityblog.verizonbusiness.com.
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