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Cyber criminals are successfully wreaking havoc in computer systems using traditional techniques, Gerry Power, Emergence's national head of sales, told brokers in an insurance webinar.
During the Emergence Insurance webinar, attended by 1,100 brokers and clients, Power said cyber criminals continue to have success with hacking, which was involved in 48% of breaches, and malicious software, used in 30% of breaches. A further 17% of breaches were due to errors and 12% were from privilege misuse.
The figures were from the global Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR), which analysed more than 50,000 claims.
Cyber criminals commonly used a mixture of methods, for example, phishing (disguising as a trustworthy entity) to obtain access to insert malware, according to the webinar.
Power said the figures highlighted the need for more education about cyber risk dangers, as he noted that 15% of staff still clicked on phishing emails and that 39% of claims involved ransomware.
“Phishing awareness is an important risk management tool,” Power said. “Brokers’ clients are dreaming if they think it won’t happen. (Criminals) don’t have to steal data to make money, they can just stop you using it.”
To guard against cyber criminals, the cyber insurance specialist urged brokers and their clients restrict administration privileges, require three-factor ID for access, and always update software.
Power said cyber-event remediation was expensive and the cost would increase now that Australia’s notifiable data breaches (NDB) scheme was being enforced.
