According to an analysis by the specialist insurer Hiscox, the costs of cybercrime for German companies are among the best in the world.
Last year, the average damage caused by hackers in Germany was 20,792 dollars (18,712 euros), as Hiscox announced in Munich. German companies were thus far above the international average of 17,000 dollars and took first place internationally. The British company released the new edition of its annual cybercrime analysis.
The report is based on a survey of 5181 managers in Germany, the USA, Great Britain, France, Spain, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands as well as the company’s own data. “Compared to 2020, the number of cyber damages reported to Hiscox Germany almost doubled in 2021,” said Gisa Kimmerle, Head of Cyber at Hiscox Germany. “Not only has the absolute number of claims increased enormously, but also the claims ratio per insurance policy: Compared to 2020, this is 55 percent higher in 2021.”
Hiscox’s mean loss of $21,000 is not the same as the average, but represents the middle of a data series (median) – so in the case of cyber losses, half were higher than $21,000 and the other half were lower.
Kimmerle said cyberattacks are much more rewarding in today’s business environment as reliance on digital data has grown significantly. “Even small companies, or, for example, the craftsman or doctor around the corner, are very dependent on being able to access their IT systems and their data.”
According to the Hiscox report, a good fifth of German companies are affected by online blackmail. According to the report, more than half of the companies extorted refused to pay, but the companies that paid remitted about $46,000.
Among the main reasons for the increased cyber risk, the managers surveyed in the eight countries ranked not only the increased number of attacks (34 percent), but also the higher number of employees in the home office (36 percent).
In the course of the Ukraine war, however, there does not seem to be an increase in Russian hacker attacks, contrary to what some experts feared. “At least so far, we have not been able to identify any significant increase in cyber attacks related to Ukraine/Russia in the cases of damage that have been reported to us,” said Kimmerle. “But we take the changed risk situation very seriously and are monitoring it closely.”
