In a globally interconnected world, in which supply chains extend across both countries and continents, it only makes sense to consider the potential risks to those supply chains from a massive cyber attack. What happens, for example, if malicious threat actors decide to launch a cyber attack against the maritime ports of the Asia-Pacific region, which is home to 9 of the world’s top 10 container ports? Insurance company Lloyd’s of London, in partnership with the University of Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies and the Cyber Risk Management (CyRiM) project at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, has simulated such a theoretical attack, and projected that the cost of cyber attack could reach $110 billion in a worst-case scenario.
Cyber catastrophes vs. natural catastrophes
To put that figure into context, $110 billion is approximately one-half of the insured losses due to natural catastrophes in 2018. Last year, 394 different natural catastrophes around the world resulted in over $225 billion in insured losses. A single cyber attack has the potential to wreak a similar amount of damage, says Lloyd’s of London, which also points to the high rates of…
