Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions, announced today the acquisition of 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 to help organizations respond to cyber security threats and strengthen their security position.
The acquisition will help Aon expand its current coverages within the cyber market at a time when cyber claims are almost doubling year-over-year. The 2019 Cybersecurity Almanac published by Cisco and Cybersecurity Ventures predicts 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. “The Cytelligence team are deep experts in cyber incident response, ransomware mitigation, and cyber security training for employees, which will help cement our position in both North America and globally as an industry leader.”
Cytelligence will join the growing portfolio of Aon’s Cyber Solutions, which combines digital risk management services, security services, professional risk solutions, and a global risk consulting practice. This acquisition enhances Aon’s 2016 acquisition of Stroz Friedberg and now allows Aon’s Cyber Solutions to offer an even more holistic 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 Daniel Tobok, CEO of Cytelligence. “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.”
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.
Mr. Tobok will join Aon as the Canadian President, Aon’s Cyber Solutions.