The 2017 Cyber Liability Landscape
Partner
The number of data breaches rose substantially in 2016 and it continues to rise today. Headline breaches have been heavily concentrated in the government faction, with experts attributing this to an overall increase in government-sponsored cyber warfare coming from hostile nation-states. Cyber breaches continue to increase in the middle market private entity space despite the lower volume of records. Why? Return on investment for hackers is higher with this segment given a lower IT sophistication.
2016 Facts & Figures:
- According to a globally recognized data breach survey conducted by Ponemon Institute:
- average cost of data breaches: $4M
- average consolidated cost per record: $154
- Number of domestically reported data breaches rose to 1,093 (compared to 781 in 2015 and 783 in 2014)
- Top three mediums used in cyber security breaches: phishing, skimming, and email manipulation
- Middle market, non-public entity cyber security breaches rose 26 percent
- Government entities have been targets of cybercrime syndicates and nation-state hackers alike, headlined by breaches to US Department of Justice (30K records), Internal Revenue Service (700K records), and numerous public universities
What to Watch for in 2017:
- Improved organization redundancy will limit ransomware, but ransomware will migrate to mobile devices
- Denial of Service Attacks will replace ransomware in many industries
- Companies must make cyber security a “company wide” issue
- 2017 will bring the first official cyber security ACT OF WAR
- Third-party cyber breach class action lawsuits continue to be struck down
- Cloud provider attack volume will continue to be small, but the impact will grow
- Software/Service Providers have drawn a line in the sand in regard to liability limits
- The cyber insurance market will continue to grow and coverage will continue to be broad, but the argument over “reasonable and necessary” will loom large
Stay Tuned: The eight key cyber topics (and more) will be covered in further detail throughout 2017. If you just can’t wait or would like to have a deeper conversation about how today’s cyber threats could impact your organization, contact your M3 Account Executive.
