REvil marked US Independence Day this year with a global ransomware attack. That added another 1,000 companies, including Swedish grocery Coop, to a list of victims that already included Brazilian meat packer JBS and America’s Colonial Pipeline.
Cyber attacks are becoming bigger, more damaging and pricier. REvil demanded $70m in bitcoin to unlock networks in a blog post. Ransomware even has its own wry software acronym, “Raas” (ransom as a service). Businesses are scurrying to buy insurance.
Unsurprisingly, the price of cover is rising. Insurance broker Howden says premiums have quadrupled in some cases over the past year; more generally they are up about 30-40 per cent. As a result, premiums that once stood at about 0.5-1.2 per cent of total limited liability in 2019 are now more commonly 3 per cent or higher.