Zurich predicts the end of insurance against cyberattacks: attacks have grown so much that they have ceased to be a business

 Zurich predicts the end of insurance against cyberattacks: attacks have grown so much that they have ceased to be a business

 

There are more and more cyberattacks, it is not a sensation. 2021 was one of the busiest years for hackers. According to Check Point Research , attempts to tamper, expose, or disable systems grew 50% that year , primarily affecting the business and government sectors. As if this were not enough, the risk is expected to continue to grow over time.

The insurance market, which until now has offered proposals to protect its clients from certain computer incidents, is preparing to say goodbye to this type of coverage. In an interview with the Financial Times, Zurich CEO Mario Greco warned that as a result of this dangerous trend, cyberattacks will become "uninsurable."

The industry is preparing to change

A report from Cybersecurity Ventures can help us better understand this scenario. The company predicts that damage from cyberattacks will grow by approximately 15% each year to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025 . To give us an idea, cyberattacks resulted in a cost of 6 trillion dollars in 2021 , much more than the 137,000 million dollars related to the damages caused by natural disasters in the world in the same period.

Climate change, precisely, has been one of the main drivers behind the changes in the rules of the game in the insurance market. Certain phenomena such as DANAs have challenged the business model of insurers. The consequence? Start putting clauses to limit the amount of compensation . Coverage for cyberattacks, for its part, has already begun to be modified.

According to the aforementioned newspaper, the rise of computer incidents has led insurers to increase the price of their policies . In addition, with the aim of reducing the economic losses due to the huge claims, they have modified the terms of the contracts to increase the cost of the franchises that the insured must pay.

In 2019, the food giant Mondelez launched a $100 million claim against Zurich for a series of incidents caused by the NotPetya software. The insurance company, however, rejected the request, arguing that since the cyberattack was related to a Russian "military action" it was outside the coverage of the policy, which excludes state-sponsored attacks.

But, the updates to the policy clauses and the increase in prices may not be enough to continue offering coverage for computer incidents. "This is about civilization. These people can seriously disrupt our lives," says Greco. One of the problems is that it is not always possible to identify the source of the attacks , so you cannot quickly tell if they are cybercriminals. independent or from groups that have government backing.

The Log4Shell bug, described as one of the worst in history , has been one of the main causes of the increase in cybercrime globally. The vulnerability turned upside down for months the IT departments of thousands of companies that had to patch their systems to protect them from possible intruders. Several experts point out , however, that the problem has not come to an end.

The Department of Homeland Security's Cyber ​​Security Review Board rates the vulnerability as "endemic" and warns that it could re-emerge at any time if the industry does not take appropriate action. In any case, challenging times are ahead for computer security, the insurance market knows this and has already begun to take action.