Aegis London has launched a cyber insurance product offering property damage, bodily injury, environmental pollution and cyber terrorism wrapped around existing policies. Cyber attacks will be the 'new normal’ in 2015 with an increase in destructive attacks linked to on-going global conflicts.

Rick Welsh, head of cyber insurance at Aegis London, said: “We know that networks and systems are being targeted in critical industries. Cyber and physical assets are continuously being compromised yet until now, insurers globally have not been able to provide the cohesive or holistic protection required”.

Welsh believes Aegis London to the first insurer globally to unify (re)insurance capital and cyber security expertise to provide this type of insurance solution.

"We expect the threat posed by activists to be eclipsed by cyber attacks perpetrated by groups linked with areas of geopolitical tension, such as the former USSR or contested regions, such as the South China Sea. We expect that organisations will be caught-up in the fallout of hybrid warfare – facing both physical and cyber attacks.

Joe Hancock, cyber security specialist at Aegis London said: “Cyber attacks are the new normal. It is not enough to say ‘it won’t affect us’, ‘it wasn’t patchable’ or that an attack just wasn’t detected – businesses and systems now need to be resilient against the attacks that will occur.

In the coming year, Aegis London expects to see attacks targeting operational systems, potentially causing impacts on health, safety and the environment. Current insurance policies are often silent on these potential exposures, or explicitly exclude them.

Hancock added: “These attacks are now increasingly destructive as we have seen with the recent attack on Sony Entertainment. This trend is likely to continue, highlighting the need to respond to incidents rapidly”.

As part of the offering, Aegis London has partnered with PwC, who will provide incident response and forensic services for CyberResilience+ policyholders. PwC has around 270 professionals in the UK specialising in cyber security and digital forensics, providing a dedicated incident response and threat intelligence capability, as well as advising businesses on legal issues and the broader impact of breaches on business performance and reputation.

PwC’s global digital forensics and incident response footprint spans more than 37 countries, encompassing more than 650 staff across 55 forensic labs. PwC has also launched a new service, Breach Aid, to give emergency help to organisations facing a data breach or cyber attack, including by rogue insiders.

James Rashleigh, PwC forensics director specialising in cyber incident response, said, “Time is critical if your network has been breached. Businesses that suspect they have suffered a breach need to be able to act quickly and decisively to contain the issue and limit the damage.

“Our global footprint means that whether we need to deploy a team in London, or get boots on the ground in 15 countries, we have an unparalleled network we can mobilise rapidly. We have the cutting-edge skills and technology partnerships to handle even the most complex of incidents.”

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