Cisco, Apple, Others Team on Cyber Risk Management, Insurance

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Some industry giants have come together on a new cyber risk management service for businesses that includes options for enhanced cyber insurance coverage from Allianz, cyber resilience evaluation services from Aon, and secure technology from Cisco and Apple.

The offering aims to help a wider range of organizations better manage and protect themselves from ransomware and other malware-related threats,the companies said.

Cisco’s Jawahar Sivasankaran

Jawahar Sivasankaran, Cisco’s senior director of sales and business development, and security strategic partnerships, tells Channel Partners the offering gives partners that already have a security practice a “great opportunity to focus on holistic risk management.” It also provides an opportunity for partners that are either new to security or have limited security exposure “to get deep into security,” he said.

Allianz determined that customers using Cisco Ransomware Defense and/or qualified Apple products can be eligible for its enhanced cyber-insurance offering. The coverage is underwritten by Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS).

“There is a cyber-risk evaluation that Aon does that measures the cybersecurity controls that a customer has in place, so the results of that will be shared with the customer,”  Sivasankaran said. “Partners will play an important role all the way starting from the architecture and design of the existing customer environment … partners will help in implementing those solutions so the customer can then qualify for the right insurance level.”

Cisco Ransomware Defense is part of Cisco’s integrated security portfolio that uses threat intelligence from Cisco Talos to see threats once, and block them everywhere. The solution includes advanced email security, next-generation endpoint protection and cloud-delivered malicious internet site blocking, to strengthen an organization’s defenses against malware, ransomware and other cyber threats.

Cisco’s Steve Benvenuto

iPhones, iPads and Macs give employees the “best experiences at work with the strong security that businesses need,” according to Apple. The integration of hardware, software and services on iOS devices “ensures that each component of the system is trusted, from initial boot-up to installing third-party apps,” it said.

Steve Benvenuto, senior director of Cisco’s Global Security Partner Organization, said this is a “conversation around risk mitigation, around cyber insurance that we’ve really seen accelerate within the partner community over the last six to nine months as we’ve seen more ransomware attacks.”

“The opportunity here is it really simplifies a framework that says, ‘here’s the Cisco offering, here’s the insurance and the technology companies that have come together to really paint a clear picture for customers about how they can get the right cyber coverage with the right Cisco technology to back it up,’ and then the opportunity for the partner to resell the technology that supports this solution,” he said.