FARMINGTON — The threat of cyber crimes compromising Davis County’s vital records has officials applying an extra layer of network security insurance for cost protection.
This is the first time the county has added a policy specific to protecting it from the fallout of a private records data breach, whether it be criminal or the result of human error, said Davis County Personnel Director Mel Miles
On Tuesday, the Davis County Commission approved a $16,821 contract with ACE Insurance Company of Illinois to receive additional “privacy/network security liability” coverage through the remainder of this calendar year. The coverage policy, renewable on an annual basis, is effective immediately.
“There are just so many ways information can be compromised,” Miles said.
The new insurance policy, Miles stresses, is certainly not an indicator of any lack of confidence in the county’s current information system program. The county has a good information system with firewalls that have protected their records quite well in the past, he said.
The county has not experienced a data breach, Miles said. But it would be naive of officials to think these breaches will be less common in the future, or that the hackers will give up, he said.
The added policy was recommended by the county’s risk-management committee to help protect the county from costs should a data breach compromise someone’s private records, Miles said.
This is the first time the county has implemented such a policy, Miles said, even though they have discussed it for some time. The tipping point of putting it in place has been the significant number of breaches with other public entities in the state and nation, he said.
“The number of (cyber) attacks and the sophistication of the attacks has escalated,” Miles said. “We’re all more vulnerable to these breaches than we were five or six years ago.”
The policy allows the county to follow through in helping those who are victims of the crime, he said.
This particular policy will also cover the county in the event network information is compromised by human error, such as an employee losing a thumb drive with sensitive records on it, Miles said.
The policy will also provide the county with the forensic support it needs to identify what happened should a breach occur, he said.
This particular liability insurance is becoming more common for public entities to acquire, Miles said.
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