CloudCover's "Solution Differentiators" Part Two: The Importance of Risk Awareness

Now that we’ve introduced you to our tenets and technology, we’re going to take a deep dive into another one of our “solution differentiators”: the idea of true cybersecurity risk awareness. We’ll walk through what risk aware network security entails, and how our CyberSafety CC/B1 Platform™ uses the movement of risk as a way to build actuarial models for our cybersecurity insurance offerings.

In the first blog in our “Solution Differentiators” series, we set the stage with our ethos — our beliefs about what the industry must do to truly Reimagine CyberSecurity and get to a place where internet safety can be a reality. We also introduced you to our CyberSafety CC/B1 Platform™ and how we designed it as the tool to fight cyber attacks in this new ecosystem.

As we see it, the new era of cybersecurity is comprised of three key elements: risk awareness, risk control and risk transfer. How can simply being aware of risks be one of CloudCover’s differentiators? It starts with the fact that risk awareness is rarely simple.

What does it mean to be risk aware?

At CloudCover®, we think about risk awareness in two parts:

• Using a SOAR (security orchestration, automation and response) X/NDR (extended network detection and response) platform — like our CyberSafety CC/B1 Platform™ — to gain a “single pane of orchestration” view of your network and therefore have knowledge of all existing risk.
• Using statistical analysis of that risk data to learn from it and identify patterns to build actuarial models for the purpose of true cybersecurity insurance.

With the first piece, orchestration is key. Risk awareness can only come when you can see everything, so it’s important to have a solution such as the CC/B1 that collects data from all corners of your network — every device, cloud-based and installed software, and data ingress and egress — and streamlines it so you have one window to look through instead of several.

Why does being risk aware matter?

The more you’re aware of your network’s risk, the easier it is to control it — and decrease it. The CC/B1 is a platform that can identify an attack and block it automatically, before it can spread into the network.

At the same time, CC/B1 is cataloging that network event, refining its statistical baselines every time it encounters a malicious transmission. The more data the scoring has, the more history and patterns it can establish for suspicious behavior, using past events to assess the present. This kind of evidence of your network’s risk level enables continuous actuarial baselines for transferring that risk through cybersecurity insurance.

The link between CC/B1’s risk awareness and cybersecurity insurance

Current cybersecurity insurance premium costs are sky-high — the acceleration in prices has coincided with increased demand and higher insurer costs. In a recent survey of insurance brokers, more than half of their clients’ premiums grew by 10-30% in late 2020. This year, the average cybersecurity insurance premium increase is between 35-40% (Moorcraft, 2021).

We’re at a crossroads where the current cybersecurity insurance model isn’t sustainable, because:

• Companies who need insurance coverage don’t have a full understanding of their risk,
• Insurance companies don’t understand how to accurately conduct cybersecurity risk scoring for their individual customers, as it’s tough to evaluate cyberthreats and put a price to them, and
• This lack of understanding on both sides leads to high premiums on limited and ineffective coverage.

The key to cybersecurity insurance that works is what we offer with CC/B1 — building evidence of the threats a specific company is facing through continuous network telemetry, and using that data to determine the risk — and set more accurate premiums. When an insurance company knows what they’re insuring, it translates to lower costs and more companies getting insured. The CC/B1 Platform also monitors data in motion as well as data at rest, so it also allows for insurance of that data — which isn’t currently covered by most cybersecurity insurance offerings.

Risk awareness is one of our solution differentiators, because it’s uniting technology with insurance to provide a true end-to-end cybersecurity solution.

In our next blog in this series, we’ll focus on the second element of the new era of cybersecurity — risk control — and how the CC/B1 Platform performs this task without human intervention.

We want to help you become more aware of your network risk. To learn more or to schedule a demo of the CC/B1 Platform, visit our platform page.

References:

Moorcraft, Bethan. (April 15, 2021). “Cyber insurance market reacts to ransomware epidemic.” Insurance Business America. https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/cyber/cyber-insurance-market-reacts-to-ransomware-epidemic-252394.aspx