Fraudulent instruction as a form of cyber attack is on the rise, according to Beazley’s new Cyber Services Snapshot report.

Released today, the new report examines cyber security asset management vulnerabilities, and addresses need for proactive asset management to support detection and response capabilities

In addition to insights from professionals on the front line of Beazley’s incident response teams, the report features data gathered between 2020 and Q3 of 2022, including cause of loss by industry, ransomware vectors, business email compromise and data exfiltration. These data points provide a real-time view into incidents reported to Beazley, revealing an ongoing picture of emerging cyber risk.

Professional service firms experienced more fraudulent instruction and almost as many business email compromise incidents so far in 2022 as in the whole of 2021. Claims caused by fraudulent instruction are on the rise this year despite an overall decline in incidents.

“The past two years of pandemic-driven remote work have led to decreased inter-departmental communication and less oversight overall, making the likelihood that an organisation has an incomplete asset inventory greater than ever,” said Bala Larson, Beazley’s head of client experience.

“Good asset management is good governance and as such, it needs to be built into business decision-making. Organisations that fail to do so inherently expose themselves to cyber breaches that result in higher costs and more liability.”

On a brighter note, system infiltration overall is down in 2022, due to a combination of factors including better risk selection, improved security practices and threat actor attention being focused elsewhere.

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