Repairers confident they’re protected against the threat of ransomware might want to double-check for flaws in their assumptions and IT setup, based on a Monday CIECAst.

David Willett, value creation executive at ProSight Specialty Insurance, and Collision Advice CEO Mike Anderson both told the webinar audience they’d heard of multiple collision repairers who fell victim to ransomware. Ransomware attacks can bar access to one’s files and demand the victim pay to get them back. Failure to pay by a specific deadline might lead to the files lost forever.

Willett said repairers are providing separate Wi-Fi networks for customers and shop operations — a cybersecurity best practice that hadn’t always been as commonplace in the recent past.

But the wall between the two might be porous in practice.

Willett recalled visiting one shop he described as diligent on cybersecurity measures and asking an employee about their personal device’s Internet connection. Employee personal devices like smartphones should be on a separate Wi-Fi network than the shop’s official one, according to Willett.

The employee had connected the personal device to the shop’s Wi-Fi. The…

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Coalition Inc.’s mission as a company is to solve cyber risk, according to Joshua Motta, co-founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based cyber insurance and technology firm.

That “does not mean eliminating security failures, which is largely what the cybersecurity industry has attempted to do,” by designing and selling antivirus and other applications designed to make a company secure, he said.

“We do not believe that is possible, and at the end of the day, cybersecurity is not a technical problem. It’s a risk management problem for solving cyber risks” and helping companies survive technological and security failures, he said.

The winner of the Business Insurance 2020 U.S. Insurance Award for Underwriting Team of the Year (management liability/professional liability/cyber liability), Coalition tackles these challenges by helping its customers become productive and more competitive, enabling them to embrace technology without additional risk, Mr. Motta said.

“There is not a single company in this country not dependent on a working computer, internet connection and access to data,” Mr. Motta said. Having those taken away “can be…

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