Beazley sees 60 percent rise in breaches caused by hacking and malware

Data breach incidents caused by hacking and malware increased dramatically between 2014 and 2015, according to claim trends collected Beazley, provider of data breach response insurance. The firm also saw a 60 percent increase in data breaches last year, up from 777 in 2014 to 1,249 in 2015, and predicts an exponential rise in ransomware attacks.

 In 2015, 32 percent of all claims handled by Beazley’s Breach Response team were caused by hacking or malware compared to 18 percent in 2014. Other causes of loss include unintended disclosure of records at 24 percent (down from 32 percent in 2014) and loss of physical records at an unchanged 16 percent. The fields of healthcare, higher education, and financial services were found to be particularly vulnerable.

 “We saw a significant rise in incidents caused by hacking or malware in the past year,” said Katherine Keefe, global head of BBR Services.  “This was especially noticeable in healthcare where the percentage of data breaches caused by hacking or malware more than doubled.”

 For an insurer, the cause of the breach – and any increase in the type of attacks organizations might be experience — can affect the breach response services offered, including legal counsel, forensic services, regulatory guidance and more.

 “Every time there’s a spike in a cause of a breach … that does impact the kind of services an organization needs to determine what’s going on, because time is of the essence,” Keefe told Advisen. In the event of malware, for example, insureds benefit from a data forensic firm quickly launching an investigation to determine what type of malware has been introduced to a system, whether any data has been accessed or exfiltrated, and the extent and length of the intrusion.