When a Singapore company fell prey to a ransomware attack that encrypted and blocked access to its data held on 20 servers on one fateful weekend, it turned to its cyber risk insurer for help.
The insurer, Chubb, activated its appointed cyber forensics firm to work out a mitigation strategy by identifying less business-critical servers that could be restored from backups and negotiating the ransom amount with the perpetrators.
An incident response team eventually removed the ransomware from the affected servers, while a crisis management firm was roped in to assist with client communications.
Similar attacks are playing out across Singapore, but adoption of cyber risk insurance remains low among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). According to a recent study by Chubb, only 34% of SMEs in Singapore are currently insured, partly because of uncertainty over the value of cyber risk insurance.
For example, it is not widely known that cyber risk insurers such as Chubb also provide access to security tools and incident response services, according to Andrew Taylor, cyber underwriting manager of Chubb in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Our policy is more than a traditional…
