Hacking or malware accounted for 34% of the 2,013 data breach incidents addressed by Beazley Breach Response Services during the first three-quarters of this year, London-based Beazley P.L.C. said in a report Tuesday.
The breach response unit said in its Beazley Breach Insights Report – October 2017 that this was followed by unintended disclosure, which accounted for 29% of the incidents.
Social engineering, or data breaches based on deception, accounted for 9% of the total, which was an increase from the 1% of the total reported for the comparable period in 2016, according to the report.
Beazley said the two most prevalent types of incidents are fraudulent instruction incidents, in which a criminal impersonates a trusted party such as a company executive, and W-2 scams.
Other causes of data breaches involved portable devices and physical loss/nonelectronic records, at 6% each, and payment card fraud at 1%, with unknown or “other” accounting for the remaining 6%.
Paul Bantick, team leader for technology, media and business services underwriting at U.K.-based insurer Beazley P.L.C., said that the insurance market for cyber risks is changing and bringing new buyers such as manufacturers, critical infrastructure and energy utilities, StrategicRisk reported. "Clients are considering business interruption, contingent business interruption, regulatory and other privacy liability covers," Mr. Bantick said.