Cybercriminals may target insurers because the company files contain sensitive policyholder information and they believe insurance companies have deep pockets to extort. Most insurers and insured business owners understand the gravity of falling victim to a cyberattack but may not prioritize good cyber hygiene in everyday practices, which could have devastating consequences. Cyber hygiene protects the...
You’ve been hacked. It’s a sentence that can stop any organization dead in its tracks. And the potential of a breach has cemented itself as one of the most devastating risks an organization could endure. An estimated 2,200 cyberattacks occur each day, equivalent to one attack every 39 seconds. This surge in cybercrime carries an astronomical...
Also known as IT security, cybersecurity refers to the act of safeguarding internet-connected systems, critical data and other digital assets from potential cyberthreats—threats that may attempt to exploit sensitive information, steal funds or disrupt normal business operations. In other words, cybersecurity consists of the strategies implemented to help protect people, processes and technology from cyberattacks...
Social engineering refers to a cyberattack method in which a cybercriminal preys on key human behaviors (e.g., trust of authority, fear of conflict and promise of rewards) to obtain unwarranted access to targets’ technology, systems, funds or data. These attacks can be deployed through various tactics, such as digital impersonation, deceitful messages or malicious software...
When everyone thinks of cyber, first-party ransomware claims spring to mind, but this year there has been a more significant rise in third-party liability claims driven by pixel and tracking software-related matters. As more U.S. states pass laws against the collection of personally identifiable information, tracking software claims have evolved. This new trend follows other data privacy trends that...
In its latest sigma study, Swiss Re Institute finds that potential digitalization benefits across countries and throughout the insurance value chain are far from exhausted. According to the reinsurer’s “The economics of digitalization in insurance” sigma report, digitalization is a source of new growth, new risks, and new efficiencies for the insurance industry. Digital value creation has...
Cyber risks are constantly evolving, and while there had been a lull in the frequency of ransomware attacks, that respite has clearly ended. In an interview last month on NPR, Jackie Burns Koven of Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform that provides insights on cyber risks and attacks, said that 2023 is shaping up to be...
Cyber insurance is here to stay, but the rapid pace of development of technology and other external factors mean that accurately predicting what the market and products will look like in 10 years’ time could be anyone’s guess. This was the message from Shannan Fort (pictured), McGill & Partners partner – financial lines, cyber, who...
Data breach litigation ramped up significantly in 2022, with more filings overall and filings in smaller data privacy events, according to BakerHostetler’s annual Data Security Incident Response Report. The law firm tracked a five-year trend showing a higher percentage of events resulting in at least one lawsuit—from four lawsuits out of 394 in 2018 up...
Mobile malware—malicious software designed to gain access to private data on mobile devices—is a growing threat to companies’ cybersecurity. As companies embrace remote work and more employees use their personal devices for work-related tasks, cybercriminals are finding more opportunities to exploit these vulnerable and often unsecured devices to access corporate servers and sensitive information. The...