The acquisition will support Aon in expanding its current coverages within the cyber market
Image: Aon acquires cyber security services provider. (Credit: Pixabay/VIN JD.)
UK-based insurance giant Aon has acquired Cytelligence, a Canada-based cyber security firm for an undisclosed amount.
Founded in 2016, Cytelligence offers incident response advisory, digital forensic expertise, security consulting services and cyber security training for employees to support organisations to respond to cyber security threats and to strengthen their security position.
Cytelligence has offices in Toronto, Ottawa, New York, San Francisco and Miami, employing professionals in cyber security and education, investigations, and forensic analytics.
The firm will join Aon’s Cyber Solutions, which includes digital risk management services, security services, professional risk solutions and a global risk consulting practice.
The deal will add to Aon’s 2016 acquisition Stroz Friedberg
The deal will add to Aon’s 2016 acquisition Stroz Friedberg and will now allow the UK-based insurance company to offer an improved portfolio of services to clients, ranging from proactive security services, to incident response, to risk quantification and insurance broking.
Aon Cyber Solutions CEO J Hogg said: “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.
“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.”
The deal is expected to expand Aon’s present coverages within the cyber market, at a time when cyber claims are nearly doubling year-after-year.
Cisco and Cybersecurity Ventures have predicted in their 2019 Cybersecurity Almanac that cyber events could cost $6 trillion annually by 2021, as several organisations are digitising most of their processes. Cyber insurance premiums across the world are also expected to grow from $4bn in 2018 to $20bn by 2025.
As per Aon’s 2019 Global Risk Management Survey, cyber-attacks are predicted to be one of the top three risks for organisations in 2022.
Cytelligence CEO Daniel Tobok 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.
“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.”