The risk associated with cyber attacks increases considerably. To cope with this increasingly significant type of threat, many businesses rely on ad hoc insurance coverage. Confirmation comes from ASSITECA, the largest Italian Group in business risk management and insurance brokerage. Requests for insurance coverage designed to protect against cyber attacks are growing sharply.
Cyber attacks are on the rise
According to theA report on the Clusit 2021, globally, there is a 12% growth in cyber attacks in the last year. The pandemic and smart working have severely tested IT security with considerable economic damage. Assuming a stable growth of cyber attacks around 15% per year, it is estimated a loss of 20-25 billion euros per year for Italy. To defend themselves, companies aim to activate specific insurance coverage.
ASSITECA’s comment
Vittorio Veronesi, Head of the Technical Division of ASSITECA, underlines: “Before the pandemic, the client companies that had signed a cyber risk policy were about 3% of our portfolio, today they are 10%. The coverage requests we have received over the last 12 months, from North to South from small as well as large companies, have grown by over 300% “
Investments in ICT Security are not enough. According to data relating to 2020, in fact, the damage generated by cyber crime is estimated at approximately 945 billion dollars. For every dollar invested in IT security (a total of 145 billion investments are estimated globally, only 1.5 billion in Italy) there are 7 dollars in losses.
Veronesi continues: “To address the issue in a strategic way, the first step to take is an organizational assessment on cyber security that allows you to map the exposure to risks and prepare a business continuity plan”