Podcast: An Actuary’s View of Cyber Risk

Risk Management or Optimization

In-brief: Fifty eight percent of risk managers in a recent survey listed cyber security as a top risk for their organization – double the percentage from an identical survey in 2009. But why? In this Security Ledger podcast, we talk with Max Rudolph of the Society of Actuaries and author of a recent report on cyber risk. 

If you’re a business that operates nationally or globally, there are any number of things that could ruin your day. Natural disasters in remote parts of the world could disrupt your supply chain in ways that make it impossible to get your product to market. Volatility in the global equity markets can sink expansion plans or hobble would be business partners. Add geopolitical instability into the mix and you’ve got a toxic brew.

But it turns out that when you ask corporate risk managers what they’re the most concerned about it isn’t any of those things. Rather, it is cyber attacks. That, according to a recent survey of corporate risk manager by the Society of Actuaries, conducted at the end of 2014, which found that cyber security has edged out financial volatility as the greatest emerging risk. Fifty eight percent of risk managers listed cyber security as one of their top risks – more than double the percentage that listed cyber security as a top five risk in 2009.

[Read more Security Ledger coverage of cyber insurance.]

In this Security Ledger podcast, I talk to Max Rudolph, a Fellow at the Society of Actuaries and the author of that report. We talk about why cyber attacks and data breaches have moved from a peripheral concern for businesses a decade ago to the biggest actual and emerging risk for private and public sector organizations.

Rudolph said that many risk managers now work for companies that have experienced a breach – making the problem real. He said the emergence of cyber risk may be a good thing – a product of risk managers taking a long view of risk now that the global financial crisis of 2009 has passed.

 

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