Page 18 - Insurance Times June 2021

International News

US's largest insurance Law enforcement agencies awareness of risks, while anticipated
recommend against paying ransoms, recovery in global economic growth is
companies reportedly
saying that payouts will encourage also expected to improve the
paid $40 million to hackers to keep asking for higher and macroeconomic resilience.

ransomware hackers higher sums. For its part, CNA told Swiss Re Institute has published its
Bloomberg that it wouldn't comment Resilience Index, which shows that the
CNA Financial, one of the largest US on the ransom, but that it had
insurance companies, paid $40 million "followed all laws, regulations, and COVID-19 pandemic reduced global
to free itself from a ransomware macroeconomic resilience by close to
published guidance, including OFAC's a fifth in 2020.
attack that occurred in March,
2020 ransomware guidance, in its
according to a report from Bloomberg. handling of this matter." In an update Global economic growth is expected to
The hackers reportedly demanded $60 from May 12, CNA says that it believes recover strongly in 2021, after the
million when negotiations started pandemic-induced recession in 2020,
its policyholders' data were
about a week after some of CNA's unaffected. thee reinsurance firm said, which it
systems were encrypted, and the expects will help to build
According to Bloomberg, the
insurance company paid the lower sum macroeconomic resilience again.
ransomware that locked CNA's systems
a week later. However, Swiss Re warns that "there
was Phoenix Locker, a derivative of
If the $40 million figure is accurate, another piece of malware called will not be a return to pre-COVID-19
CNA's payout would rank as one of the Hades. Hades was allegedly created by levels of resilience in 2021."
highest ransomwarepayouts that we a Russian group with the Mr. Robot- The global insurance protection gap
know about, though that's not for lack esque name Evil Corp. reached a new high of around USD 1.4
of trying by hackers: both Apple and trillion in 2020, Swiss Re's analysis
Acer had data that was compromised Global insurance protec- shows, however the reinsurance firm
in separate $50 million ransomware believes that global insurance
demands earlier this year. It also tion gap widens to $1.4 resilience will return to growth in 2021,
seems like the hackers are looking for trillion in 2020 citing increased risk awareness as a
bigger payouts: just this week we saw key driver.
According to Swiss Re Institute, the
reports that Colonial Pipeline paid a
global insurance protection gap JérômeHaegeli, Swiss Re Group Chief
$4.4 million ransom to hackers. While
widened to a new high of $1.4 trillion Economist, explained, "Our study
that number isn't as staggering as the
demands made to CNA, it's still much in 2020 due impacts from the COVID- clearly shows that economic resilience
19 pandemic, Artemis reported. Global pays off. Advanced regions benefitted
higher than the estimated average
insurance resilience is expected to from both stronger levels of
enterprise ransomware demand in
2020. rebound in 2021 due to increased macroeconomic resilience and health

18 The Insurance Times, June 2021