Outlines some of the key strategies that businesses can use to stay one step ahead of ransomware extortionists in light of their evolving approaches to targeting and extorting victims.

The survey results paint a picture of globalised companies surprised to be caught between geopolitical competitors. In the 2020 survey, the ratio of respondents who declared themselves “concerned” about political risk in the Asia-Pacific region to those who expressed no concern was well below 2:1. In this year’s survey, that ratio nearly reached 20:1.

The Ukraine crisis presents a myriad of risks to the sector – direct underwriting losses, rapidly rising prices, slower economic growth, financial market volatility and the potential for asset shocks – that are not altogether different to what occurred during COVID-19 and the financial crisis. But with direct investment and underwriting exposures limited overall, and with second order effects in financial markets currently manageable, the sector is strongly positioned to support clients through this period of uncertainty.

Most, if not all, cyber insurance policies contain a war exclusion of some description. Given the current situation, it is natural that organizations will want to understand how their cyber policy will likely respond in the event of a loss caused by a cyberattack alleged to have been deployed by or on behalf of the Russian state.