Insurers Can Play a Role in Building Resilience to ‘Unforeseen Risks’

The insurance industry has a key role to play in assisting their clients in facing the challenges outlined in the recent World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global Risks Report, including cyber risk, environmental and sustainability risks, and political risks.

The report asks global leaders to reflect on the most serious challenges facing business, government, and society – in the 2018 report, environmental risks including extreme weather events, natural disasters, and failure to adopt climate change mitigation were named as some of the most pressing issues in terms of likelihood and potential impact. Cyberattacks also ranked among the top five risks.

Erin Ayers, Insurers can play a role in building resilience to ‘unforeseen risks’ (January 26, 2018).

This story in an excerpt of the original. The content originally appeared in Advisen Professional Front Page News.

Cyber Events Increase for Oil and Gas Orgs, Now Planning Should, Too

More oil and gas organizations (60 percent) reported “significant” cybersecurity events in 2017, up from 41 percent the previous year, according to Ernst & Young’s Global Information Security Survey, but just 17 percent feel comfortable detecting sophisticated cyberattacks.

Nearly all respondents (95 percent) say their cybersecurity efforts meet their organizational needs, even as the urgency is increasing. Greater adoption of connected devices in the industrial sector means that informational and operational technology have collided. With the industrial sector a key part of many supply chains, the time for attention to cyber-physical risks is now. The report indicated that while efforts to steal intellectual property, data, or finances have dropped for oil and gas organizations, malware and phishing efforts are on the rise.

Erin Ayers, Cyber events increase for oil and gas orgs, now planning should, too (January 22, 2018).

This story in an excerpt of the original. The content originally appeared in Advisen Cyber Front Page News.

Cyber Risk Trends: 2017 Wrap-Up

Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 11:00 AM ET

What cyber risk trends are we witnessing this quarter? On Tuesday, January 30th at 11am ET, Advisen will host a free, one-hour webinar which will examine a litany of cyber risk trends derived from our proprietary database of approximately 40,000 cyber events. Advisen’s Aloysius Tan and Erin Ayers, as well as a panel of experts, will examine what occurred in cyber risk trends in Q4 of 2017 and elaborate on how these trends can inform the cyber community. Our panelists will also discuss the ramifications and implications of an array of provocative data views. By reviewing the largest possible arsenal of Cyber Event data, this webinar will showcase both the known and the unknown for risk managers, insurance buyers, and all P&C professionals who focus on cyber liability.

For more info and registration of this webinar, visit https://www.advisenltd.com/2018/01/30/cyber-risk-trends-q4-2017/

Advisen Ltd. January 2018. Cyber Risk Trends: 2017 Wrap-Up [Webinar].

‘Extreme’ Cyber Events Could Cost As Much As Major Hurricanes: Lloyd’s, Cyence

The potential costs stemming from extreme cyber risk events could rival those of major hurricanes such as Superstorm Sandy, with economic impacts ranging from $4.6 billion up to $53 billion, according to a joint report from Lloyd’s of London and cyber risk analytics firm Cyence.

Lloyd’s and Cyence took an in-depth look at two possible cyber-event scenarios: the first, a group of environmental hacktivists disrupt cloud service providers and their customers, causing widespread business and service interruption. The second scenario envisions the accidental loss of a physical copy of a report on a vulnerability in a widely-used operating system. This human error results in the spread of the information on the dark web and “an undetermined number of unidentified criminal parties” exploiting the zero-day vulnerability.

Erin Ayers, ‘Extreme’ cyber events could cost as much as major hurricanes: Lloyd’s, Cyence (July 20, 2017), available with subscription at Advisen Cyber Front Page News.

2017 Verizon Data Breach Report Sees No End for Cyber Events

2016 offered up some conflicting trends in cyber events according to this year’s Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), but one thing is clear – issues like ransomware, outside hackers, and social engineering aren’t going away any time soon.

“It is true that the DBIR will never be blank as—choose your cliché—‘there is no such thing as 100 percent secure’ or ’perfection is the enemy of good enough.’ It is also true that due to the nature of the report we admittedly have a lack of success stories. After all, this is at its core a report about confirmed data breaches,” wrote the authors of Verizon’s annual DBIR. The report included not only confirmed breaches but other cyber incidents, as well as a breakdown of incidents by industry.

Erin Ayers, 2017 Verizon data breach report sees no end for cyber events (April 28, 2017), available with subscription at Advisen Cyber Front Page News.

Cyber Vulnerability: Where Do You Stand?

July 2016

Advisen released a white paper featuring the results of a comprehensive cyber study between Advisen and BitSight Technologies focusing on the analysis of the cyber security posture of three industries: Finance and Insurance, Healthcare and Social Assistance, and Public Administration. The study looks into the number of event types by year from 2012 to 2016, the security ratings for cyber insurance by industry, and many other key data.

The free, 17-page paper is sponsored by BitSight Technologies.

A Closer Look at Cyber Events

Numerous reports show that the number of cyber attacks is rapidly growing. According to Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report, the number of zero-day vulnerabilities discovered more than doubled in 2015, and this year there have been an average of over 4,000 ransomware attacks per day.

Read more and download the white paper here: http://bit.ly/2aBFpOE

Advisen Ltd. (2016). Cyber Vulnerability: Where Do You Stand? [White paper]. Retrieved from http://www.advisenltd.com/2016/07/27/cyber-vulnerability-where-do-you-stand/

Cybercriminals Stole More Than Data in 2015: Kaspersky Report

Mobile devices and financial institutions became primary targets for cybercriminals to steal money directly from individuals in 2015, according to a new report from Kaspersky Labs, which took a look at the type of cyber events that occurred most frequently this year and made predictions for the future.

While data breaches at large retailers seem to grab headlines and prompt litigation, Kaspersky found that targeted advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks against banks, government agencies, and other high-profile organizations rose in 2015. Not content to steal names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and other personally identifiable information, criminals interested in money and state secrets more assertively entered the cyber fray this year.

Ayers, Erin. “Cybercriminals stole more than data in 2015: Kaspersky report.” Advisen. Advisen Store, 12 January 2016. Web. 20 January 2016.

Higher and Higher: Cyber Insurance Towers Take Careful Construction

Much like the physical construction of a skyscraper, building a cyber insurance tower requires a strong foundation, careful planning of each layer, plenty of ventilation, and a healthy dose of innovation to meet the needs of all insureds and insurers involved on an account.

With cyber events occurring with regularity in nearly every industry, no insurer wants to be the sole company on the hook for a claim. Crafting an insurance tower means as many as 45 to 50 insurers can handle a portion of the hundreds of millions in coverage large multinational corporations seek nowadays.