From Reactive to Proactive: Cyber Risk Reduction at Hillcrest Insurance with BlackFog vCISO

Like most other organizations, insurance companies today are facing an increasingly complex and volatile cybersecurity landscape, driven by the growing digitization of services, the sensitive nature of the data they handle, and the rise in sophisticated cyberthreats. As custodians of personal, medical, and financial data, insurers are often prime targets for cybercriminals seeking high-value data through cyberattacks such as ransomware and phishing. Hillcrest Insurance shared these challenges, and in particular had the need to mitigate the risks associated with phishing and voice phishing (vishing) scams. The organization had previously experienced a high level of phishing emails, vishing, and an attempted ransomware attack. “Preventing these attacks was a priority for us as we had experienced first-hand how easy it is to become a victim,” commented Kevin McEwen, President of Hillcrest Insurance.

Hillcrest was introduced to BlackFog’s technology by their cyber insurance provider, who thought it would meet their cybersecurity needs. “We weren’t familiar with anti data exfiltration technology before learning about BlackFog, but we were interested to learn more when we realized it was a proactive rather than a reactive solution,” commented Jodie McEwen, Vice President and Co-Owner of Hillcrest Insurance.

Hillcrest decided to trial BlackFog for a 30 day period, during which time they were introduced to Dave, a BlackFog virtual CISO. During the trial period, BlackFog was installed on the corporate devices and Kevin and Jodie could almost immediately see the value. Kevin commented, “We were impressed by the dashboard in the Enterprise Console as we could see how open we were to potential cyber issues, Dave uncovered issues we weren’t aware of, and BlackFog was already blocking them. Rather than waiting for an attack to happen, BlackFog was working proactively which we really liked.” Hillcrest decided to purchase the BlackFog vCISO product which provides a designated BlackFog CISO, effectively managing all of their cybersecurity needs 24/7.

Hillcrest has been a BlackFog customer for several years and has not experienced any cyber incidents since deploying the solution. BlackFog’s vCISO manages their day-to-day cybersecurity needs and presents a detailed report each month.

Kevin commented, “For us, BlackFog is really hands-off and we feel totally protected. We log into the console from time to time, but Dave, our vCISO, always alerts us if something needs our attention. He provides a really detailed report every month and walks us through it.”

When asked if they would recommend BlackFog to other organizations, Jodie commented, “Both Dave and BlackFog have been a pleasure to work with, which in our experience, isn’t typical when dealing with tech companies. Dave is wonderful, he explains everything well and he’s patient. Having this service takes the worry away from us so we can worry about our business and our customers. I don’t think you can put a price tag on that.”