Cyber analytics provider CyberCube has shared the process that shapes its cyber threat scenarios in a new paper.

The paper, Designing a Cyber Catastrophe, offers insight into CyberCube’s scenario development process as the company creates new threat scenarios and refines existing ones. The scenarios allow reinsurers and brokers that use CyberCube products to analyse and stress-test their portfolios of cyber risk, the company said.

“The creation of risk scenarios is one of the most important and complex aspects of risk management in the insurance sector,” said Darren Thomson, head of cybersecurity strategy for CyberCube. “It’s not a perfect means of testing an insurance portfolio, but it’s a highly effective tool for insurers to deploy.”

The new paper explains how CyberCube develops the scenarios against which companies can analyse their portfolios, and explains what CyberCube practitioners have learned while building scenarios. 

“This is a challenging space, as cyber is a very dynamic and fast-moving domain,” said Laurel Di Silvestro, principal client services manager for CyberCube. “A decade ago, the concept of self-driving cars, 4G/5G wireless networks, the home ‘internet of things’, and an automated transport network may have seemed farfetched. However, in many regions, some of these are already part of everyday life with known cybersecurity risks.”