Aon acquires Canadian cyber security specialist Cytelligence

Re/insurance broker Aon has acquired Cytelligence, a Canadian cyber security firm with deep expertise in cyber incident response and digital forensic investigations.

Aon said the acquisition will help expand its current coverages within the cyber market at a time when cyber claims are almost doubling year-over-year.

The 2019 Cybersecurity Almanac published by Cisco and Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that cyber events will cost $6 trillion annually by 2021, as companies are digitizing most of their processes and are often operating remotely. Global cyber insurance premiums are expected to grow from $4 billion in 2018 to $20 billion by 2025. According to Aon's 2019 Global Risk Management Survey, cyber-attacks were identified as a top ten risk facing organizations and is predicted to be one of the top three risks for organisations in 2022.

"As the number of network intrusions, data breaches, ransomware attacks, and similar threats continues to increase in both frequency and severity, expertise in cyber incident response becomes critical to organizations and insurance companies," said J Hogg, CEO of Aon's Cyber Solutions. "The Cytelligence team are deep experts in cyber incident response, ransomware mitigation, and cyber security training for employees, which will help cement our position in both North America and globally as an industry leader."

Daniel Tobok, CEO of Cytelligence, who will join Aon as the Canadian President, Aon's Cyber Solutions, said: "Together, we will deliver complete proactive solutions from risk assessment, cyber risk policy underwriting to secure insurance coverage to protect critical assets, to cyber breach response, effective and efficient cyber incident remediation, meticulous data collection and data preservation."

He added: "Put simply, everything that is connected to the internet can be compromised. proactive companies and their Boards are preparing now with proactive actions with penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, security audits, and training of their employees."