MAPFRE and technology provider Cyberwrite, a leading global provider of cyber insurance technology, have joined forces to help the insurer’s clients reduce the risk of cyber-attacks with AI. 

Specifically, Cyberwrite will provide the Spanish company with a cyber insurance risk platform for SME companies, with the aim of having a more accurate knowledge of the risk at the time of underwriting and renewing its cyber insurance.

Increasingly, businesses of all sizes, including SMEs, are being targeted by cybersecurity threats. According to the latest data from Statista, by the end of 2022, the cost of cyberattacks stood at around $8.44 trillion, and by 2027 the figure is expected to triple to $23.84 trillion. With the stakes so high, insurers need more data to help them understand and manage risk.

According to reports, Cyberwrite leverages AI to offer on-demand, real-time cyber risk analysis through its 4SEEN® algorithm. In seconds, Cyberwrite can generate multilingual reports with contextual cyber data, comparing companies worldwide to industry peers, regulatory framework gap analysis, and financial quantification of potential losses.

Through such reports, MAPFRE can learn about the risk level of each SME and help it take the necessary measures to remedy its cybersecurity gaps or adjust the conditions of the cyber insurance to achieve the best possible protection.

Increased cyber risk is driving change

Some of the risk factors analysed by Cyberwrite in the SME public interface include open ports, obsolete technologies or software versions with known weaknesses, poor encryption and certificate practices, lack of anti-spam mechanisms or recorded episodes of exposed credentials (including the ‘dark web’), malware discovery, and more. In addition, the solution facilitates the association of these risks to the most typical coverages, such as financial theft and fraud, cyber extortion, data loss, breach of privacy, business interruption, incident response, regulatory and defense, or third party liability.

“Many small businesses just can’t afford effective cybersecurity programs, so they don’t have the resources to protect themselves and don’t understand the risk,” said Nir Perry, CEO and Founder at Cyberwrite. 

“Our data analytics and risk reports offer MAPFRE and its customers digestible information about where exposures are. But, more importantly, AI predictions help users to understand what the findings actually mean from a cyber insurance policy perspective, in terms of risk and industry benchmark.”

The SME segment is one of the main focuses of the insurer in terms of cyber risk, as it represents a large volume of the business landscape in territories such as Iberia and Latin America, two of its main markets. Thus, with this collaboration it reinforces its commitment to these businesses, also deepening the value that SMEs give to the information that MAPFRE provides about their vulnerabilities in the field of cybersecurity. 

“For an SME, a cyber-attack can be catastrophic. At MAPFRE, we want to accompany these companies in their cyber-protection strategy and minimise the impact that risks can have on their business. By having on-demand access to the analyses, we can better understand the risk associated with each company, and offer products and services in line with their actual needs,” said Óscar Taboada, Head of Underwriting Europe & Head of Cyber at MAPFRE RE. 

He added: “With Cyberwrite, we are taking a leap forward in the evaluation, monitoring, and control of cyber risk, obtaining insights that are very useful for the teams to make data-driven underwriting decisions.”