e-Sher, eRiskSecurity to Offer Electronic Commerce Risk Assessments

e-Sher Underwriting Managers, a proprietary facility of Sherwood Insurance Services, and eRiskSecurityT announced a strategic alliance to help companies reduce risk and minimize losses due to e-business-related accidents and attacks. The two companies will work together to offer brokers and agents both e-Sher’s comprehensive e-business insurance products and eRiskSecurity’s cyber security services.

“Companies must understand the nature of the risks their enterprise faces in order to reduce these risks and to obtain the appropriate coverage to protect themselves from potential losses,” said Philip Pierson, vice president technology services, Sherwood Insurance Services, and e-Sher’s founder and manager. “Through our alliance with eRiskSecurity, we can offer these companies an initial risk evaluation to help minimize the threat of an Internet security breach, and provide coverage in the event of an attack for both the company and for third parties that may also be affected.”

“Businesses need protection for their entire information technology infrastructure, not just a single point of vulnerability such as a website,” said Richard Jones, president and CEO of eRiskSecurity. “Through our relationship with e-Sher, we can help identify and correct security weaknesses in a company’s operating systems and applications, thus mitigating losses should an attack or breakdown in security procedures occur.”

This year, businesses stand to lose billions of dollars to computer hackers and viruses, according to the Cyber Atlas and Information Week Research Study published in July 2000. Despite the potential for these astronomical losses, many risk managers do not have the information they need to assess their firms’ technology risks, and many have not obtained protection against liability exposures like computer fraud, privacy violations, intellectual property risks, defamation and false advertising, and professional liability.