The average financial impact of these incidents was $1.1m

cyber data protection

Ahead of this year’s Airmic conference, Aon Risk Solutions and the The Ponemon Institute this morning released Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) data, which explores the financial statement exposure of intangible (cyber) assets, relative to tangible assets.

The research was undertaken in March, surveying 545 risk professionals in 15 EMEA countries. Of those surveyed, more than one-third (38%) have experienced a material or significantly disruptive loss relating to a data breach or security exploit in the past 24 months. The average financial impact of these incidents was $1.1m (€645,000), with an attack that caused disruption to business and IT operations being the most common EMEA cyber incident. 

Bill Peck, chief commercial officer at 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. 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.”

The report’s findings act as a roadmap for risk managers and the finance department (in addition to IT and legal), helping them take a broader look at their organisation’s overall risk profile.