[Exclusive] Corporate Cyber Insurance Policies Surpass 7,000 Amid Spate of Hacking Incidents...Jump 42% Last Year

Cyber Insurance Direct Premiums Jump 68% Over the Past Five Years

As companies such as SK Telecom, KT, and Coupang have borne enormous social costs from large-scale hacking incidents last year, corporate purchases of cyber insurance are surging. Because companies face both financial and reputational losses when personal information is leaked due to cyberattacks, they are turning to insurance as a safeguard to prepare for such risks.

According to data titled "Status of the Cyber Insurance Market" obtained by The Asia Business Daily on the 26th through the office of Lee Haemin, a member of the National Assembly's Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee from the National Innovation Party, the number of corporate cyber insurance contracts reached 7,683 last year, when hacking incidents occurred one after another. This represents a 42% jump from 5,406 contracts a year earlier.

The number of cyber insurance contracts had remained in the 5,000 range since 2021, but surpassed the 7,000 mark for the first time last year, with the growth rate over the past five years reaching 30%. During the same period, direct premiums also surged by 68%, from 47.8 billion won to 80.1 billion won. It is interpreted that demand has increased among companies seeking to secure at least a minimum safety net, as not only major telecommunications companies but also retailers and credit card companies have been breached one after another, spending astronomical sums on damage control and recovery.

With various types of cyberattacks such as ransomware and data breaches on the rise, and concerns about personal information leaks growing, the risks that companies must shoulder are also increasing. As advances in artificial intelligence (AI) make system hacking methods more diverse and sophisticated, and as the spread of cloud computing and remote work amplifies hacking threats, there is an urgent need to prepare countermeasures such as cyber insurance.

Lee Haemin of the National Innovation Party said, "As personal information leakage incidents increase, the National Assembly has recently been actively discussing bills such as the introduction of a class action system to strengthen corporate responsibility for infringements of citizens' personal information," adding, "Preventing personal information leakage incidents must be the top priority, but once an incident occurs, companies must make active efforts for measures such as compensation for damages, and through these efforts structurally enhance their security capabilities."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.