Cyber attacks highlighted as “most dangerous risk” for UK businesses
QBE has introduced an e-trade product to support SME’s against the evolving threat of cyber-attacks.
It was developed in partnership with brokers and is a direct response to the “greater need” to protect SME’s from business interruption and financial loss.
And the product called “QBE CyberCrime” claims to be the “first e-trade product of its type” on software provider Acturis and also on the insurance group’s e-trade platform FastFlow.
Dave Greaves, head of SME at QBE, said: “The SME sector is the backbone of the UK economy.”
He explained: “At a time when businesses are facing an increasingly greater threat from cyber, exacerbated by the implementation of the GDPR, it is important that SMEs have insurance cover in place that is tailored to fit their needs and is straightforward for brokers to purchase on their behalf.”
The announcement follows recent statistics showing that over half of UK SMEs have been the victim of at least one cyber breach over the last 12 months.
What does it include?
It provides cover for social engineering fraud to counter the increasing risk of falling victim to impersonation.
The product includes cyber, crime and business interruption cover as a bundle in one policy. It includes 24-hour specialist data breach support to help businesses recover quickly in the event of an incident.
Cyber-attack threats
The World Economic Forum (WEF) highlighted two weeks ago that the threat of a cyber-attack has been identified as the “most dangerous risk” for UK businesses in a recent study.
Hiscox also revealed in October that 52% of small businesses in the UK have no cyber security strategy in place, with an average of 65,000 attempted cyber-attacks per day.
In October the FCA fined Tesco Bank £16.4m for its handling of a November 2016 cyber attack which saw attackers pot £2.26m from a 48-hour incident that the regulator said was “largely avoidable.”
Back in August hackers held Superdrug to ransom over an alleged data breach of 20,000 of its online customers information.
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