Former US DHS Secretary Starts-Up Cyber Crime Insurance Company

As Target, Home Depot, and JP Morgan Chase have recently discovered, cyber attacks are tough to fend off, and extremely costly. Enter Tom Ridge, the former Secretary of Homeland Security, with a new insurance product aimed at businesses worried about the financial devastation a successful hacker can wreak.

Tom Ridge is targeting companies under $500 million with $50 million cyber crime insurance policies
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge

Ridge Insurance is offering cyber crime insurance policies of $50 million to small and medium-sized businesses. A typical policy may cover both the financial damage done (like damage caused by the hit to a company’s reputation) and the expense involved in cleaning up the mess from a cyber attack, like alerting customers. Ridge Insurance sees Tom Ridge’s experience as a selling point: it plans to offer customers threat assessments and advice for reducing a company’s vulnerability to these sorts of attacks.