Aon Acquires Canadian Cyber Security Firm Cytelligence

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Insurance broker Aon reported it has acquired Cytelligence Inc., a Canadian-based cyber security firm that provides incident response advisory, digital forensic expertise, security consulting services and cyber security training for employees.

Aon said the acquisition will help it expand its current coverages within the cyber insurance market at a time when cyber claims are almost doubling year-over-year.

Cytelligence has offices in Toronto, Ottawa, New York, San Francisco and Miami. The firm employs professionals in cyber security and education, investigations, and forensic analytics. The firm was founded in June 2016 by Daniel Tobok, CEO of Cytelligence, who is joining Aon as the Canadian president, Aon’s Cyber Solutions.

Aon’s Cyber Solutions combines digital risk management services, security services, professional risk solutions, and a global risk consulting practice.

This acquisition follows Aon’s 2016 acquisition of Stroz Friedberg, a firm that specializes in cyber-security services including digital forensics, forensic accounting, incident response, security, compliance, data discovery, and due diligence.

The addition of Cytelligence allows Aon’s Cyber Solutions to offer an even broader portfolio of services to clients from proactive security services, to incident response, to risk quantification and insurance broking.

“Together, we will deliver complete proactive solutions from risk assessment, cyber risk policy underwriting to secure insurance coverage to protect critical assets, to cyber breach response, effective and efficient cyber incident remediation, meticulous data collection and data preservation,” said Cytelligence’s Tobok. “Put simply, everything that is connected to the internet can be compromised. proactive companies and their boards are preparing now with proactive actions with penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, security audits, and training of their employees.”

The 2019 Cybersecurity Almanac published by Cisco and Cybersecurity Ventures predicted that cyber events will cost $6 trillion annually by 2021, as companies are digitizing most of their processes and are often operating remotely. Global cyber insurance premiums are expected to grow from $4 billion in 2018 to $20 billion by 2025.

According to Aon’s 2019 Global Risk Management Survey, cyber-attacks were identified as a top ten risk facing organizations and is predicted to be one of the top three risks for organizations in 2022.

“As the number of network intrusions, data breaches, ransomware attacks, and similar threats continues to increase in both frequency and severity, expertise in cyber incident response becomes critical to organizations and insurance companies,” said J Hogg, CEO of Aon’s Cyber Solutions.