CSC announces the establishment of the Insurance CybersecurityAdvisory Council for property & casualty insurers to facilitatethe development of best practices and technology strategies thateffectively mitigate the risk of cyber attacks on the insuranceindustry.

The council made up of business and IT executives representing across-section of insurance companies—with life & annuityinsurers as well—will collaborate with CSC to promote awareness andinformation sharing throughout the industry. The council's firstmeeting is slated for January 2012 inWashington,D.C.

Insurers, agents, brokers and consumers are increasinglyembracing mobile devices and applications, social networking, andcloud computing, all of which provide opportunities for achievinghigher levels of business performance through enhancedproductivity, collaboration, and agility. At the same time, thesenew technologies can leave insurers vulnerable to cybersecuritythreats—both from inside and outside of the organization. If notaddressed, these threats can have a devastating impact on acarrier's reputation and ability to operate and generaterevenue.

"While insurance companies are benefiting from the digitizationof their businesses, they also face new risks such as a potentialtarnished reputation, fraud, intellectual property theft, businessdisruption, increased regulatory scrutiny or persistent threatssuch as cyberespionage," says Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, vicepresident and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "Insurers mustassess the maturity of security and enterprise risk managementprograms and their ability to effectively defend against today'sandtomorrow's cyber-risks."

"By forming the insurance industry's first CybersecurityAdvisory Council, we will be the catalyst for best-practice sharingand development of technology solutions to address this growingconcern," says Ray August, president of CSC's Financial ServicesGroup. "Shareholder and consumer confidence, along with arequirement to pass increasingly complex audit procedures, rely ona company's ability to safeguard intellectual property and customerdata. The council's industry leaders will work together to identifythe evolving cyber protection needs for insurance, define the mosteffective ways to combat cyber threats and educate the industryabout the need for prevention."

CSC's cybersecurity capabilities include a worldwideinfrastructure of Security Operations Centers; Common Criteria TestLaboratories in theUnited States, Europe and theFar East; and aglobal cyber strike-force team to respond to cybersecurityincidents and provide cyber forensics training and analysis.

Specific offerings cover vulnerability analysis and penetrationtesting, data loss prevention services and a full range of managedsecurity services. CSC's nearly 2,000 cyber professionals servecommercial clients and public sector enterprises globally,including civilian departments and agencies, and defenseorganizations.