Optus breach triggers spike in cyber cover enquiries

Sydney-based insurtech Upcover says weekly website traffic to its cyber pages jumped 184% after it was revealed a hacker stole the personal data of millions of Optus customers.

The data breach appears to have caused a spike in Australia’s small to medium (SME) business owners looking into cyber insurance options, Upcover says.

“Our customer success team is fielding lots of inbound queries and assisting with quotes,” CEO and Co-founder Skye Theodorou said. “It’s increasing every day since the breach.”

Upcover recently launched a pay-by-the-month insurance option which it says offers instant affordable cover with no need for finance approvals, lengthy forms and redirections between parties.

Founded in 2019, the insurtech offers coverage for small businesses and sole traders underwritten by ProRisk under an authority to bind cover on behalf of Swiss Re. In July, Upcover raised $4.7 million in seed funding and debt in a round backed by QBE LMI GM Patricia Priest and former Zurich Insurance Global Life CEO for APAC Colin Morgan.

A government survey two years ago found almost half of SMEs reported they spent less than $500 a year on cyber security, and Upcover says this means many hackers view these businesses as an attractive target with few resources to defend against attacks.

Businesses commonly underestimate their cyber incident recovery period, and many only partially recover and can permanently lose critical data or funds.

“Cyber criminals aren’t just attacking large metropolitan organisations,” Ms Theodorou said. “Sadly small business is the target of 43% of all cybercrime in Australia.”

Upcover’s Cyber & Privacy Liability product reimburses ransom payments made as a direct result of a cyber extortion, restoration costs incurred as a direct result of a cyber incident, financial loss as a result of a cyber crime committed by a third party, and business interruption losses incurred due to outage from a security failure.

It says it is Australia’s first fully digital cyber security insurance offering for businesses and covers up to $5 million liability for SMEs with up to $7.5 million revenue and 100 employees.

Upcover plans to offer live professional indemnity, public and products and management liability, covid bounce-back insurance and commercial motor – including rideshare and delivery – tools of trade, glass, and personal accident.