Cybersecurity Incidents Are Major Business Disruptions

Recently, Allianz Insurance released its Risk Barometer for 2018, which surveyed more than 1,900 risk management experts from more than 80 countries.

The survey covered Allianz customers, insurance brokers, risk consultants, underwriters, executives and surveyors. The poll was carried out in October and November 2017.

Service Interruptions and Security Incidents go Hand-in-Hand

Businesses from small to multinational companies were asked to name their top concerns. For the sixth time in a row, service interruptions made it to the first place with 42% of all polled.

“For the first time, business interruption and cyber risk are neck-and-neck in the Allianz Risk Barometer and these risks are increasingly interlinked,” said Chris Fischer Hirs, Chief Executive Officer, AGCS.

“Whether resulting from attacks such as WannaCry, or more frequently, system failures, cyber incidents are now a major cause of business interruption for today’s networked companies whose primary assets are often data, service platforms or their groups of customers and suppliers.”

With today’s continuous progressions in business digitisation, companies see a strong link between business interruptions and cybersecurity incidents.
 
According to 40% of all those polled, the risk of cybersecurity incidents is considered the second most important issue businesses are facing today. Only five years ago, cyberattacks were listed in 15th place on the risk rating chart.

In Europe, pressure will also increase, as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will become effective on 25 May 2018. It seems that smaller and mid-sized companies became more aware of cybersecurity risks over time.

Refocusing from Risk Identification to Prevention

The insurance industry is adapting to the increased recognition of cyber threats, but not necessarily at the same pace as these threats are increasing. Establishing expertise, integrating cyber risk into existing offerings, and adding new products is taking some time.

But the portfolio of cyber insurance offerings is growing, and the outcome of the Allianz Risk Barometer validates a growing demand, especially with GDPR looming. There needs to be a shift toward cyber threat prevention vs. reactive security measures, and that will become more important for the insurance industry, just as it is for the IT security industry.

Paradigm Shift on the Horizon

More and more companies are coming to realise that traditional reactive security efforts from the past are not keeping up with today’s cybersecurity risk landscape, even if they are implementing interconnected platforms of signature-based legacy antivirus technologies.

Typically, up to 75% of a company’s IT spending is used for management and maintenance of existing IT systems. Qualified employees’ adept at migrating legacy IT systems into modern architectures are rare and can be expensive.

On top of that comes a high percentage of legacy security technology that is based solely on detection and response capabilities, not actual prevention. This type of defense strategy consumes and depletes resources, while, at the end, it is totally ineffective.

Today, it still takes an average of 229 days until a breach is detected. Being able to quickly clean up after an incident is important, but preventing the breach in the first place is golden.

The monetary damage averages at $158 USD per breached data record, according to the ICT Ransomware Report. Additional layers of Detect and Respond systems are not capable of protecting against the high cadence of polymorphic and highly sophisticated attacks.

This is why service interruptions now lead the pack of business risks listed in the survey.

While targeted attacks are more sophisticated today, we also see a continuous evolution in malware commercialisation. Mutation and encryption tools are easily available to ‘part-time’ cyber criminals today. While those tools have existed for years, today they are available as-a-service for a low monetary investment.

Today, virtually anyone with an Internet connection can purchase toolkits or even full malware campaign services that can easily bypass traditional security solutions through a broad stack of attack vectors.

So, one piece of malware can be reused infinite times, with low or no knowledge required about malware programming. The phenomenal increase of crypto currencies is just another indicator.

Conclusion

Cybersecurity threats are not the exclusive concern of IT departments anymore - other business units are taking note of the impact to business procedures and continuity. The latest Allianz Risk-Barometer underpins the direct connection between business interruption and cybersecurity incidents.

Many companies are trying to patch their security strategy by adding and connecting more layers of legacy Detect and Respond technology that utilize a common pile of threat intelligence.

However, evasion of such multi-layer systems is possible and progressively cheaper than ever before. Organisations should rethink and modernise their cybersecurity arsenal.

True prevention is possible today, with solutions based on artificial intelligence and machine learning which are not dependent on URL lists, signatures, or heuristics, solutions that prevent attacks by way of self-sufficient math models that are extremely lightweight and compatible with corporate business needs.

To contact the GDPR Advisory Board please visit:  www.gdpr-board.co.uk

Threat Matrix

You Might Also Read: 

Businesses Using Apple & Cisco Products Pay Less For Insurance:

Companies Are Buying Cyber Insurance 'in mad panic':

 

« US City Of Atlanta Suffers An Attack
Have You Gauged The Cost Of A Cloud Outage? »

Infosecurity Europe
CyberSecurity Jobsite
Perimeter 81

Directory of Suppliers

Syxsense

Syxsense

Syxsense brings together endpoint management and security for greater efficiency and collaboration between IT management and security teams.

CSI Consulting Services

CSI Consulting Services

Get Advice From The Experts: * Training * Penetration Testing * Data Governance * GDPR Compliance. Connecting you to the best in the business.

TÜV SÜD Academy UK

TÜV SÜD Academy UK

TÜV SÜD offers expert-led cybersecurity training to help organisations safeguard their operations and data.

Directory of Cyber Security Suppliers

Directory of Cyber Security Suppliers

Our Supplier Directory lists 8,000+ specialist cyber security service providers in 128 countries worldwide. IS YOUR ORGANISATION LISTED?

Resecurity

Resecurity

Resecurity is a cybersecurity company that delivers a unified platform for endpoint protection, risk management, and cyber threat intelligence.

Delphix

Delphix

Delphix is the industry leader for DevOps test data management.

vArmour

vArmour

vArmour is the industry’s first distributed security system that provides insight and control for multi-cloud environments.

FIDO Alliance

FIDO Alliance

FIDO Alliance is a non-profit organization formed to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication devices.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

VTT is the leading research and technology company in the Nordic countries. Areas of activity include cyber security.

e-Crime Bureau

e-Crime Bureau

e-Crime Bureau is a specialized company offering cyber/computer forensics, cyber security consulting services, forensic audit and investigations services and training to clients across Africa.

Lightship Security

Lightship Security

Lightship Security is an accredited Common Criteria and FIPS 140-2 IT security testing laboratory that specializes in test conformance automation solutions and IT product security certifications.

Cyber Resilience

Cyber Resilience

Cyber Resilience offer an intensive program designed to help you create strategies to quickly become cyber resilient and to manage cyber risks in a measurable and predictable way.

Rocheston

Rocheston

Rocheston is an innovation company with cutting-edge research and development in emerging technologies such as Cybersecurity, Internet of Things, Big Data and automation.

Gordian Networks

Gordian Networks

Gordian Networks offers complete managed IT services and IT support for small to large businesses.

Focal Point

Focal Point

We aspire to be the focal point for Medium and Small size companies providing 24/7 cyber security advice, services and solutions.

Unit21

Unit21

Unit21 helps protect businesses against adversaries through a simple API and dashboard for detecting and managing money laundering, fraud, and other sophisticated risks across multiple industries.

Transparity Cyber

Transparity Cyber

Transparity Cyber is dedicated to cybersecurity. As part of the Transparity Group we’re an established name in the Microsoft Cloud landscape, with a focus on cybersecurity excellence.

Reaktr.ai

Reaktr.ai

Reaktr.ai is founded on the vision of using AI as a catalyst to propel industries into a future where we redefine what's possible. Fortify your cybersecurity defense with our AI-powered platform.

Cyberleaf

Cyberleaf

Cyberleaf is simplified managed cybersecurity for MSPs, enabling top tier cyber protection for small and medium enterprise.

Benchmark Executive Search

Benchmark Executive Search

Benchmark specializes in finding elite talent for startup, emerging-growth and mid-cap companies offering game-changing technologies or innovative services to the federal and commercial markets.

CSIRT-Gnd

CSIRT-Gnd

CSIRT-Gnd provides 24x7 Computer Security Incident Response Services to citizens, companies and government agencies in Grenada.