Zurich is launching a study into security and privacy risks to help businesses protect themselves from data and privacy breaches. The study is being carried out in association with the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA) and the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. It is designed to help the risk management community to:

• Gain a greater understanding of how the risk management community as a whole views information security and privacy risk, from its significance within organisations to effective mitigation processes and the financial implications;
• Learn what processes and actions that other organizations are implementing to predict and prevent information security breaches from occurring;
• Benchmark their knowledge and views on information security and privacy against those of their peers.

The study will focus on issues of responsibility within the organisation, primary areas of concern, levels of commitment to tackling these risks by senior management, employee training and the existence of an incident response plan.

“With an average cost to investigate and respond to a data breach being over USD 5 million, businesses cannot afford to be unprepared when it comes to security and privacy risks," says Steve Wilson, CRO, general insurance at Zurich Insurance Group.

“The Online Trust Alliance is already calling 2012 ‘the year of the breach’ so the risk management community needs to be much better equipped to tackle this issue. The findings of the survey will provide risk managers with important insights into this critical issue and help deepen Zurich’s understanding of how we can tailor our security and privacy solutions to better meet the needs of our customers”.

Risk managers are invited to contribute to the new study by completing an online questionnaire at bit.ly/PSFJJr. The deadline for contributions is Friday 7th September 2012.

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