How security ratings can help underwrite cyber insurance

How security ratings can help underwrite cyber insurance RiskXchange The leader in Third-Party Cyber Risk Management

In light of the increasing number of data breaches in recent years, cyber insurance is growing in popularity to help protect organisations, individuals and other bodies should an attack take place. In order for insurance companies to accurately underwrite their cyber risk policies, security ratings are an essential measure for coming up with their pricing strategies and to reduce risk in their portfolios.

Security ratings are formulated through publicly available information, assessing the potential data breach risks arising from control weaknesses in any system. They are devised by a trusted, independent security firm like RiskXchange, which makes them a valuable and objective indicator of an organisation’s cybersecurity performance. The better your security rating, the less your insurance premiums will cost and the better protected you will become.

Cyber threats

According to DivvyCloud and other leading organisations, data breach costs are projected to hit GBP 5 trillion this year. Cyber insurance policies are therefore essential to helping companies offset the cost of recovery following an attack. Bespoke cyber insurance policies allow an organisation to transfer some of its financial risk to its insurer to help mitigate costs in the event of a security breach.

The more common examples of breaches that cyber insurance firms look out for come in many different guises, here are some examples:

– Data theft

– Dumpster diving

– Spyware viruses

– Potential for employee error

– Denial of service attack

– Ransomware attack

– Disparagement via email

– Unauthorised access

– Attacks resulting in extortion

Mitigating the risks

In anticipation of a potential unforeseeable attack, insurance companies write focused cyber liability policies taking into account security ratings devised by independent security firms like RiskXchange. These policies outline specific protection measures for organisations to execute to avoid potentially devastating costs required to recover from a major cyber incident.

An organisation’s cybersecurity posture plays an important role in the underwriting process of any cyber insurance firm. Minimal cyber risk is, of course, beneficial to any organisation and ensures that you are protected at all costs, at all levels. Security ratings are key to providing an up-to-date reflection of a potential insured’s security weaknesses, ensuring the correct policy is written and everything is in place to protect your data.

What does cyber insurance cover?

Cyber insurance covers all kinds of threats and is not only limited to those mentioned above. Anything from personally identifiable information (PII), to healthcare data, to credit card data and more are all at risk. When a data breach occurs, there are both first-party and third-party costs that must be covered.

Examples of first-party costs:

– Credit monitoring on customers, patients, or employees affected by the breach.

– Cost of forensics teams to identify and restore the damaged caused.

– Notification costs. How the organisation notifies those affected and how they deal with the potential fallout to their business – not just through the data breach itself, but also on a long- term basis.

Examples of third-party costs:

– Lawsuits from employees, customers or patients suing the organisation because their data and/or personal information was not properly secured.

RiskXchange to the rescue

RiskXchange is a leading information security technology company, that helps companies of all sizes fight cyber threats by providing instant risk ratings for any organisation across the globe. Our vision is to help organisations of all sizes manage their enterprise and supply chain security risk exposure, by providing a next-generation real-time security risk rating platform, capable of presenting easy to understand security risk and performance ratings for the board.

RiskXchange provides a powerful AI-assisted, yet simple automated and centralised unique 360-degree security risk rating management approach. We generate objective, quantitative reporting on a company’s security risk and performance, that enables organisations with evolving business requirements, to conduct business securely in today’s open, collaborative, digital world.

RiskXchange delivers cost-effective solutions

RiskXchange is leading the fight against cybercrime. We are able to deliver cyber insurer accepted security ratings formulated through publicly available information, which assess the potential data breach risks arising from control weaknesses in any system.

We offer continuous cybersecurity monitoring, providing real-time visibility of users and their devices on all applications, software and device types. Our cybersecurity monitoring best practices give organisations the ability to continuously look over their network to stay one step ahead of any cyber threats.

About RiskXchange

RiskXchange is an information security technology company, that helps companies of all sizes fight the threat of cyber threats by providing instant risk ratings for any company across the globe. RiskXchange was founded and is led by recognised experts within the security industry, who have held leading roles within companies such as IBM Security.