The continuing cybercrime storm

Driven by a perfect storm of circumstances, the cybercrime situation has never been worse, delegates have heard at the Bermuda Captive Conference.

In a keynote speech at the conference entitled “Protecting your Assets and Information in the Digital Age”, Rachel Wilson, managing director, head of wealth management, data security, and infrastructure risk, Morgan Stanley, pointed out that national governments are putting a great deal of resources into cybercrime.

Wilson said that countries like North Korea are funding their expensive nuclear programmes via hacking, with highly trained and motivated teams of tech-savvy young personnel, blurring the line between crime and state-sponsored acts.

Wilson advised better password security, increased caution, and more multi-factor authentication, particularly in the wake of the pandemic, when increased levels of working from home led to lapses in security.

Russian efforts to obtain information over the long term were also highlighted, with denial of service and other criminal behaviour being reported.

A particular issue for insurers that Wilson highlighted was ransomware, as many companies affected by this are bowing to the ransom demands. She said that, according to one estimate, $20 billion of losses came from ransomware in the US alone in 2021 and that there was a very real legal question of whether paying ransomware demands was actually illegal.

Wilson added that many insurance companies discovered that many of those who had cyber issues were violating terms and conditions of their cyber policies and that, as a result, cyber policy costs were spiralling upwards.