Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28
By Kheyraddin Nasirzade – Trend:
In the age of intensive development of information technologies, the issue of data protection in the virtual space and minimizing losses resulting from cyber-attacks is becoming more and more pressing every day.
Yet managing to completely defend oneself against such threats is an impossible feat. It is therefore that various high-end insurance products are being actively developed throughout the world. Every year, about 6,000 corporate users are exposed to cyber attacks in Azerbaijan, with about a third being exposed to local attacks. Nonetheless, despite the relatively high degree of threats, there are still no insurance products in Azerbaijan that could provide protection against cyber threats.
As Khayal Mammadkhanli, chairman of the committee of insurance intermediaries of the Azerbaijan Insurers Association told Trend, the lack of experience of Azerbaijani insurance companies in this field ups the risk of clients being exposed to cyber attacks.
Mammadkhanli noted that companies insure computers, servers and other ICT equipment, but insurance products for the protection of software and databases are currently lacking.
"There exists a comprehensive banking risk insurance [banker's blanket bond (BBB)] in the world, which includes insurance against cyber attacks, but such type of a separate insurance is unavailable on the Azerbaijani market," Mammadkhanli added.
According to data provided by the Kaspersky Lab, slightly above the half (50.1 percent) of Azerbaijani users faced various local threats on their devices in 2018, while 36 percent were exposed to attacks on the Internet. In addition, 1,079,667 unique malicious links were blocked by Kaspersky Lab's security solutions in Azerbaijan in a single year.
According to global experts, the losses from cybercrime in 2019 will exceed $2 trillion, while the expenses for cyber insurance will exceed $7.5 billion. Due to the relevance of this issue, cyber-insurance products are offered by more than 60 insurance companies in the world today.