CORPORATIONS must consider data as a valuable asset and strengthen data integrity to fill the security gaps in their systems, said David Piesse, Ultimate Risk Solutions Managing Director, who was among the speakers at the recently held Malayan Insurance’s Forum on Cyber Insurance in Makati City.
Encouraging companies to invest in greater data security, Piesse cited reports that hackers’ capabilities to breach and steal data have been improving by 300 percent each year, while companies’ cyber security improvement rate stands at just 20 percent.
According to Piesse, this increasingly worrisome scenario is due to the lack of integrity in most systems, networks, processes and data.
“Ninety five percent of the cyber security budget goes to anti-virus and encryption, and the other five percent goes to data integrity. Every time you put in new software for anti-virus, though, you open up more hacking goals for data integrity,” he explained, suggesting that 50 percent of this budget should be spent looking after the data, and the other half should be allocated on the security of the information technology infrastructure.
Reportedly, about 2.5 billion data across the globe were exposed due to data breach in the past five years, with nearly 800 incidents in 2015 alone. The Philippines, on the other hand, recorded an estimated number of 1,200 cybercrimes from 2013 to 2015.
Malayan Insurance has partnered with one of the world’s largest and most innovative reinsurance companies, Munich Re, to address this concern as it urges Philippine businesses to further amplify their cyber risk management programs through cyber insurance.
The Insurance Commission has recently ranked Malayan Insurance as the no. 1 insurance company in the Philippine non-life sector.
Malayan’s cyber insurance product protects businesses against risks associated with increased digital connectivity, covering a variety of both liability and first party losses that may result when engaged in electronic activities. Included in the coverage are non-tangible assets such as data information and non-tangible property damage such as identity theft following data privacy breaches.
Munich Re Chief Underwriting Officer Thomas Peter, however, said that cyber exposures grow with the evolution of technology, thus cyber insurance will progress along with these factors.
“Cyber insurance won’t be a static product. It has to develop with the technology, the companies, and the insurance clients,” he said.
In addition, Munich Re Casualty Underwriter Wan Shahrezal stated that alongside market movement, heightened government reinforcement of data protection and privacy laws will largely impact the insurance policy enhancements as this is among the determinants of growth in the insurance industry.
For more information about Malayan’s cyber insurance, visit the nearest Malayan Insurance branch, call (02) 628-8738/628-8849, e-mail [email protected]/ [email protected]/ [email protected], or visit www.malayan.com.
