Cyber risk is one of the greatest threats to businesses in Portugal and in the world; its economic impact is more than a 20% loss in revenue, customers and business opportunities. The phenomenon has been growing at an increasing rate worldwide and has affected one in four companies in Portugal during the past year.
Cyber Risk in Portugal and in the World was the theme of the first MDS Trends meeting, promoted by MDS, a market-leading multinational Portuguese insurance brokerage and risk consultancy business, and S21sec, a leading technological company specialising in cybersecurity.
Paula Rios, director at MDS, says: "Cyber risk is now one of the greatest threats to companies, potentially impacting their business continuity and sustainability. However, despite this reality, companies still fail to adequately protect themselves against cyber risk, whether in terms of technology and risk mitigation or via the financial protection of insurance.”
Recent data indicates only 8% of Portuguese companies have, at any point, purchased cyber insurance to reduce the financial impact of cyber attacks.
Cyber risk means any risk of financial loss, interruption of operation or damage to the reputation of an organisation due to some type of failure of its information technology systems.
Cybercrimes can be caused by internal (malicious or negligent insiders) or external attacks, resulting in considerable damage to businesses, both at a financial level and in the costs associated with business interruption and the loss of information and reputation. They can even lead to companies closing down.
Speakers at the MDS Trends event were Carla Zibreira, cybersecurity expert and S21sec’s head of Consultancy & Academy and Pedro Moura Ferreira, cyber risk specialist and MDS’s head of Technical Placement.
MDS and S21sec - a pioneering partnership for cyber risk insurance
MDS and S21sec went into partnership in order to provide and market cybersecurity services and insurance to corporates. This initiative enables companies to protect themselves against cyberattacks, combining an active prevention policy based on S21sec's security solutions, with specific insurance provided by MDS to reduce the potential impact of such an event.
Customers in Portugal and Spain, plus those in international markets, are already benefiting from both companies’ reach. MDS and S21sec have developed, and will continue to do so, pioneering initiatives to raise awareness and share knowledge about cyber risks, including hosting a workshop with Associação Portuguesa de Seguradores (Portuguese Insurer Association) to discuss this topic.
In order to manage organisations’ risks, MDS and S21sec provide a full cybersecurity service including cyberattack prevention, detection, analysis and action, plus insurance for cyber risks. MDS and S21sec also scrutinise an organisation's competence for their information security, technical audits, awareness-raising campaigns, training, continuous security monitoring, response teams for critical security incidents and forensic analysis. As a result, companies will be more proactive in their cyber risk management and better equipped to deal with any threats.
As partners they evaluate what cyber risks exist within a business and raise awareness of and educate how to mitigate them. They discuss prevention measures and how to implement ‘best practice’ solutions to protect, respond to and recover from cyber incidents. Organisations benefit from S21sec’s cybersecurity knowledge and MDS’s insurance experience; a partnership which guarantees companies are given a competitive, personalised and comprehensive service, tailored to their specific needs and the requirements of the markets they operate within.
