MUMBAI: Cyber insurance market is gradually gaining traction in India as corporates have increasingly identified cyber-theft to be amongst the most prominent threat to their operation, a report from Data Security Council of India (DSCI) said.
Data from the DSCI report showed that close to 350 cyber insurance policies were bought by Indian corporates as against 250 in 2017, marking a 40% increase in the sale. In this period, the average cost of data breach in India rose by 7.9% to Rs 12 crore.
India, between 2016 and 2018, was also the second most affected country from cyber threats, according to the report.
“As threat surface continues to expand due to rising digitisation in the country, ‘Cyber Risk’ becomes pivotal in the overall risk management strategy… And it is not only the large businesses; one of the recent bank attacks of 2018 highlighted the vulnerabilities of co-operative banks in India, bringing into picture that even small and medium businesses could be victims of attacks,” the report said.
Rising digitalisation of businesses due to adoption of new technologies by companies, increasing awareness on cyber security, new modus operandi for these thefts and apprehensions around implications of GDPR and India’s Personal Data Protection Bill were the main reasons why companies have been buying cyber-insurance policies.