While cyber attacks are deeply concerning, there's a silverlining for the insurance industry in 2018: opportunity. Here areseveral ways cyber risks will affect insurers in the comingyear.

1. Businesses will start to get more serious aboutcyber insurance; premiums will inflate.

Cyber-insurance will continue to grow at a fairly steady paceas companies begin to adopt not an "if" but "when" mind set forattacks. A successful attack can cause major damage – not only to acompany's bottom line, but to its reputation and consumertrust.

2. An increase in cyber attacks means more opportunitiesfor insurers and advisors.

The variety of attacks and the technologies and processesdeployed to prevent them will be noticeable in 2018, adding moreconfusion for companies. However, this will become an opportunityas businesses seek advice, and insurers become critical influencersin future buying decisions.

3. Moving insurance from risk protection toprevention.

Due to a growing awareness of cyber attacks, in 2018 businesseswill start to see security as a key commercial risk ratherthan an IT issue that affects every facet of their business. Aholistic process will begin to be adopted from the boardroom downto change cultures and take positive steps company-wide to protectdigital systems.

4. The rate of security breaches will continue toincrease.

Previously, a degree of blame has always been placed on theend-user when a breach occurred; however, companies will begin toadopt policies that make it easier to report breaches within thecompany. The focus will shift from how to respond to how to detect the breach. In turn, reinsurancesupport will grow in response to better data and tools, supportingthe overall growth of the market.

These issues should also be considered for any portable devicesince 2018 is likely to see more breaches of these devices and thebusiness data stored on them.

5. Fear of a breach builds businessopportunity.

As regulation increases, banks and insurers will require systemsthat are quick to evolve and can keep up with changes. Therefore,buy-in to technology will increase as institutions find itincreasingly difficult to stay ahead and readjust to ever-evolvingrisks and regulatory landscapes.

Related: Top 10 writers of cybersecurityinsurance

6. RegTech to the rescue?

Three major areas related to regulation will be the key focusfor the next two years: Data security, data privacy and cybersecurity.

Insurers will continue improving their ability to harness datawhile also re-establishing trust with customers by offering abetter customer experience. The benefits of a digitally transformedclient lifecycle management process are very compelling suchas:

• Faster on-boarding.

• Efficient remediation.

• Digitalization of data management and integration.

If companies are able to cut their compliance costs byleveraging technology and overcoming these challenges, this willbecome an even bigger driver during marginal compression.

However, will technology hinder good judgement and human inputon risk management decision-making processes? Only time willtell.

Dawn Illing ([email protected])is the regional product manager for GlobalSign.