Zurich Insurance has launched DigitalResolve, a coordinated incident response service to help businesses in Asia Pacific (APAC) mitigate and recover from cyberattacks.
Offered through partner Crawford & Company, DigitalResolve helps organisations to co-ordinate and manage resources so they can recover from damaging cyberattacks with minimum disruption. The new service launches at a time when increasingly globalised and interconnected operations are increasing the potential impact of cyber disruptions to businesses, while internet-related technologies such as mobile internet, the Internet of Things and cloud technology generate economic benefit yet increase cyber dependency.
In this complex environment – which cost the global economy an estimated US$315 billion through cybercrime in 2015, $81billion of which was lost in APAC – Executives in eight countries see cyberattacks as the greatest global risk to doing business, according to the WEF’s Executive Opinion Survey 2015. Across the region, these countries include Singapore, Japan and Malaysia.
DigitalResolve is specifically developed to immediately mitigate the risk of operational shutdown, supply chain disruption, customer and revenue losses, declines in productivity, regulatory fines, litigation claims, cyber-extortion payments and reputational damage.
The new service supports organisations that are attacked by assigning them a dedicated 24/7 incident manager with immediate response capabilities, who in turn appoints and coordinates a team of cyber experts to resolve the issue and minimise post-attack exposure. Depending on the attack, these will include PR consultants, forensic accountants, IT forensic experts, lawyers, credit monitors, and ransom negotiators.
DigitalResolve will be available to all Zurich Security and Privacy customers in Singapore first, followed by Hong Kong, Japan and China by the end of 2016, before being rolled out to other markets across the APAC region. Already offered in the UK, DigitalResolve is fully operational.
“It is not a question of if but when a cyberattack will happen,”said Oliver Vale, Head of Professional Indemnity, Zurich Global Corporate Asia. “Today more than half of the world’s internet users are in Asia. However, despite being the fastest growing region for connectivity, the region is still inadequately prepared for cyberattacks.”
“Embracing new IT-driven technologies opens up wide-ranging opportunities for organisations of all sizes – but our increasing reliance on the internet introduces significant new risks too. In light of the increasing volume and sophistication of security breaches, it is no longer sufficient to consider cyber risk a concern for the IT department or mitigate against the possibility of experiencing cyberattack in the first place. Today, organisations must also plan for co-ordinated recovery in the event of an attack, so that when breaches happen, they can get the business back to full strength, at full speed. Furthermore, given the nature of Singapore as a regional hub, local businesses are exposed globally. DigitalResolve is specifically set up to provide the same high level of resolution worldwide as it is locally, as panels are chosen not only for their track record and expertise but also their global reach and established networks.”
Zurich is also collaborating with governments, academics and other think tanks around the world to establish global standards, encourage information sharing, build resilience and create adequate global governance on cybersecurity.