More than a third of risk professionals throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) have experienced a material or significantly disruptive loss relating to a data breach or security exploit in the past 24 months, according to Aon Risk Solutions.
The average financial impact of these incidents was $1.1 million, with overwhelmingly the most common EMEA cyber incident an attack that caused disruption to business and IT operations.
The research, undertaken during March 2015 in partnership with The Ponemon Institute, surveyed 545 risk professionals across 15 countries in the EMEA.
Bill Peck, chief commercial officer for Aon EMEA, said: “Aon wanted to understand how organisations qualify and quantify the impact of cyber-related assets.”
“This survey is unique as it focused on the relative financial statement impact of cyber incidents compared to tangible asset vulnerabilities.”
Aon has stated that it expects the findings to act as a roadmap for risk managers and finance personnel, helping them take a broader look at their organisation’s overall risk profile and ensure comprehensive insurance coverage is in place compared to the impact of each risk on the organisation.
Peck continued: “In today’s technology-driven environment, enterprise risk management issues are rapidly growing with the increased use of information assets and technology and present an ever-increasing exposure to business.”
