Page 24 - Insurance Times October 2019

Better response to regulators and rating National Cyber Security Advisor. It will have in excess of
1,000 specialists will's identity dispersed into various
agencies developments of the Army, Navy, and IAF. As per reports,

The new strategy will help Allianz better measure its cyber the new Defense Cyber Agency will have both hostile and
exposure and respond to regulators and rating agencies. cautious limit. The Defense Cyber Agency is viewed as an
With these efforts, Allianz aims to be able to better manage antecedent of a digital direction. After reports that Russia
the cyber aggregation risk in its PC portfolios to deal with interfered in the US decisions by hacking machines and
large-scale cyber loss scenarios that could potentially affect making purposeful publicity on the web and the ongoing
multiple policyholders at the same time. Today's business ransomware and other digital assaults being credited to
environment is global and highly-interconnected, increasing North Korea, digital fighting is picking up the significance.
an organization's probability of cyber threats. Organizations
must remain secure, vigilant, and resilient to both minimize Insurers are lobbying the IRDAI to allow them to hold a
risk and optimize new opportunities. 100% stake in InsurTech start-ups in India .Existing rules
prevent insurers from acquiring a stake of more than 10%
Given India's fast-growing affinity towards technology and stake in such start-ups due to which they are unable to
its services, it is important that the country's businesses access the propriety software developed by these
take more active steps towards cyber security. As we companies. Many insurers are still using legacy software at
accelerate towards becoming a trillion-dollar digital the back end and are unable to compete with tech-savvy
economy, building the right framework for cyber resilience firms as they leverage technology in various areas of their
and security is critical for the country. operations from fraud detection to cross-selling of
insurance plans.
The government on its part has taken a number of
initiatives in this direction; however, the involvement of Insurers, as an industry, have made a presentation to IRDAI
to allow them to own a 100% stake in these companies. On
each citizen and all organizations to make it a collective and
the other hand, there are comments that the insurance
coordinated movement is must for the success of the cyber
secure eco system. India currently ranks 15th in a list of the companies are not doing enough to cater to Internet-savvy
world's least secure countries with respect to cyber millenials who form one-third of India's population. But
some progress is noted. Earlier, the IRDAI said that it is
security, according to a study conducted by security portal
working on creating a regulatory sandbox to support
Comparitech.
InsurTech. It goes without saying that IT will be hands-on
Nowadays Cyber Crime is a serious issue in India. Indian in getting your cyber security initiative off the ground.
government is aware of this and have established separate Your IT team should be up-to-date on the latest security
department called Cyber Crime Police Department, which
best practices and should help provide insight on how to
tracks the hackers and their cyber crime activities.
best convert your goals into a functional plan suitable for
According to RBI's Information Technology Framework for your organization's internal systems. As per the report,
the NBFC Sector, it has become mandatory for the non India continues to be second most impacted by spam and
banking industries to incorporate Information Security bots, third most impacted by network attacks, and fourth
framework bench marked to best practices.
most impacted by ransomware.
The focus of the proposed IT framework is on IT References:
Governance, IT Policy, Information & Cyber Security, IT
1. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-third-
Operations, IS Audit, Business Continuity Planning and IT
most-vulnerable-countryhttps://www.businesstoday.in/
Services Outsourcing. These directions are categorized into
technology/news/wannacry-ransomware-attack
two parts, those which are applicable to all NBFCs with
2. https://www.irdai.gov.in/Defaulthome.aspx?page=H1
asset size above Rs. 500 crore (Considered systemically
3. https://scroll.in/pulse/861096/interview-we-need-a-
important) and NBFCs with asset size below Rs 500 crore.
The legislature is, at last, responding to the danger with an medical-regulator
arrangement to make another tri-benefit organization for 4. http://www.mondaq.com/india/x/781972/
digital fighting. Financial+Services/
International+Financial+Services+Centres
The Defense Cyber Agency will work as a team with the 5. Newspapers & Journals

24 The Insurance Times, October 2019