Gallagher said that it has either recommenced or in the process of restarting most of its business systems following the incident
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. was hit with a ransomware attack on 26 Sep 2020. (Credit: Pete Linforth from Pixabay)
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (Gallagher) said that it has been recently hit with a ransomware attack that had affected a limited part of its internal systems.
The global insurance brokerage, in a securities filing, said that it has recommenced or in the process of restarting most of its business systems.
However, Gallagher revealed that it is in the early stages of evaluating the ransomware incident.
The company said that based on the details it has so far, the cyber attack may not have a material impact on its operations, business, or financial condition.
Gallagher stated: “On September 26, 2020, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (the “Company”) detected a ransomware incident impacting a limited portion of our internal systems.
“We promptly took all of our global systems offline as a precautionary measure, initiated response protocols, launched an investigation, engaged the services of external cybersecurity and forensics professionals, and implemented our business continuity plans to minimize disruption to our customers.”
Based in Illinois, US, Gallagher is a group of global companies which includes Gallagher, RPS, Gallagher Bassett, Artex, Pen Underwriting, Gallagher Re, Alesco, Crombie Lockwood, and other merger partners and entities.
There has been a spike in ransomware and other cyber attacks this year
In June 2020, specialist insurer Beazley published a report which said that ransomware attacks in the first quarter of this year grew by 25% compared to Q4 2019. The statistic was based on incidents reported to the company’s in-house breach response team Beazley Breach Response (BBR) Services.
As per Beazley, the manufacturing industry witnessed the biggest spike in ransomware incidents during Q1 2020. However, financial services and healthcare sectors continued to be the most impacted, together making up half of all ransomware attacks reported to the company in the first quarter of 2020.
Earlier this month, cyber insurance services provider Coalition published a report according to which ransomware incidents made up 41% of cyber insurance claims filed in the first half of this year.