Cyberinsurance Policy

Why cyberinsurance has not improved cybersecurity and what governments can do to make it a more effective tool for cyber risk management. As cybersecurity incidents—ranging from data breaches and denial-of-service attacks to computer fraud and ransomware—become more common, a cyberinsurance industry has emerged to provide coverage for any resulting liability, business interruption, extortion payments, regulatory fines, or repairs. In this book, Josephine Wolff offers the first comprehensive history of cyberinsurance, from the early “Internet Security Liability” policies in the late 1990s to the expansive coverage offered today. Drawing on legal records, government reports, cyberinsurance policies, and interviews with regulators and insurers, Wolff finds that cyberinsurance has not improved cybersecurity or reduced cyber risks. Wolff examines the development of cyberinsurance, comparing it to other insurance sectors, including car and flood insurance; explores legal disputes between insurers and policyholders about whether cyber-related losses were covered under policies designed for liability, crime, or property and casualty losses; and traces the trend toward standalone cyberinsurance policies and government efforts to regulate and promote the industry. Cyberinsurance, she argues, is ineffective at curbing cybersecurity losses because it normalizes the payment of online ransoms, whereas the goal of cybersecurity is the opposite—to disincentivize such payments to make ransomware less profitable. An industry built on modeling risk has found itself confronted by new technologies before the risks posed by those technologies can be fully understood.

This report provides an overview of the financial impact of cyber incidents, the coverage of cyber risk available in the insurance market, the challenges to market development and initiatives to address those challenges.

Tackling the cybersecurity challenge is a matter of survival for society at large. Cyber attacks are rapidly increasing in sophistication and magnitude—and in their destructive potential. New threats emerge regularly, the last few years having seen a ransomware boom and distributed denial-of-service attacks leveraging the Internet of Things. For organisations, the use of cybersecurity risk management is essential in order to manage these threats. Yet current frameworks have drawbacks which can lead to the suboptimal allocation of cybersecurity resources. Cyber insurance has been touted as part of the solution – based on the idea that insurers can incentivize companies to improve their cybersecurity by offering premium discounts – but cyber insurance levels remain limited. This is because companies have difficulty determining which cyber insurance products to purchase, and insurance companies struggle to accurately assess cyber risk and thus develop cyber insurance products. To deal with these challenges, this volume presents new models for cybersecurity risk management, partly based on the use of cyber insurance. It contains: A set of mathematical models for cybersecurity risk management, including (i) a model to assist companies in determining their optimal budget allocation between security products and cyber insurance and (ii) a model to assist insurers in designing cyber insurance products. The models use adversarial risk analysis to account for the behavior of threat actors (as well as the behavior of companies and insurers). To inform these models, we draw on psychological and behavioural economics studies of decision-making by individuals regarding cybersecurity and cyber insurance. We also draw on organizational decision-making studies involving cybersecurity and cyber insurance. Its theoretical and methodological findings will appeal to researchers across a wide range of cybersecurity-related disciplines including risk and decision analysis, analytics, technology management, actuarial sciences, behavioural sciences, and economics. The practical findings will help cybersecurity professionals and insurers enhance cybersecurity and cyber insurance, thus benefiting society as a whole. This book grew out of a two-year European Union-funded project under Horizons 2020, called CYBECO (Supporting Cyber Insurance from a Behavioral Choice Perspective).

Tackling the cybersecurity challenge is a matter of survival for society at large. Cyber attacks are rapidly increasing in sophistication and magnitude—and in their destructive potential. New threats emerge regularly, the last few years having seen a ransomware boom and distributed denial-of-service attacks leveraging the Internet of Things. For organisations, the use of cybersecurity risk management is essential in order to manage these threats. Yet current frameworks have drawbacks which can lead to the suboptimal allocation of cybersecurity resources. Cyber insurance has been touted as part of the solution – based on the idea that insurers can incentivize companies to improve their cybersecurity by offering premium discounts – but cyber insurance levels remain limited. This is because companies have difficulty determining which cyber insurance products to purchase, and insurance companies struggle to accurately assess cyber risk and thus develop cyber insurance products. To deal with these challenges, this volume presents new models for cybersecurity risk management, partly based on the use of cyber insurance. It contains: A set of mathematical models for cybersecurity risk management, including (i) a model to assist companies in determining their optimal budget allocation between security products and cyber insurance and (ii) a model to assist insurers in designing cyber insurance products. The models use adversarial risk analysis to account for the behavior of threat actors (as well as the behavior of companies and insurers). To inform these models, we draw on psychological and behavioural economics studies of decision-making by individuals regarding cybersecurity and cyber insurance. We also draw on organizational decision-making studies involving cybersecurity and cyber insurance. Its theoretical and methodological findings will appeal to researchers across a wide range of cybersecurity-related disciplines including risk and decision analysis, analytics, technology management, actuarial sciences, behavioural sciences, and economics. The practical findings will help cybersecurity professionals and insurers enhance cybersecurity and cyber insurance, thus benefiting society as a whole. This book grew out of a two-year European Union-funded project under Horizons 2020, called CYBECO (Supporting Cyber Insurance from a Behavioral Choice Perspective).

Cyber insurance and compliance for the general business community.

Full of tips, case studies, tables and checklists this new title sets out the parameters of liability in respect of potential and actual cyber insurance claims and examines the significant areas where such claims will have the greatest impact. Covering First and Third party insurance, it provides the answers to questions such as: What is the extent to which a data breach can be protected or mitigated against by having suitable insurance in place? How does having insurance interplay with obligations under the GDPR? To what extent can insurance be used to safeguard driverless cars, drones and other AI-machines? How can insurance companies assist when hackers hold companies to ransom after stealing data? How can insurance assist with smart contracts on the blockchain and for potential coding errors? How can insurance mitigate against the hacking of online systems of manned ships?