AIG’s Hong Kong unit has launched two Asia-specific cyber insurance products designed to address key cyber risks such as extortion via malware, social engineering fraud and data breaches.

Following WannaCry and NotPetya, AIG has seen an 87% jump in submission enquiries for cyber insurance in Greater China compared to the month before the attack, while Hong Kong submission enquiries increased 21%.

The two new products are aimed at organisations of all sizes.

“Hong Kong’s market is comprised of 90% small and medium sized companies. For them, a cyber breach of any type can become a major threat very quickly,” said Jason Kelly, AIG’s head of liabilities and financial lines, Greater China and Australasia. “Despite the belief that major breaches are not common in Hong Kong due to the majority of breaches not being reported, in reality, smaller organisations account for most of the losses.”

According to the authors of the Telstra Cyber Security Report 2017, 14.7% of organisations surveyed in Hong Kong experience security incidents on a weekly basis, making the city one of the most at-risk jurisdictions in Asia.

The diverse cause of cyber threats was highlighted in the recent report from the Pokemon Institute which indicated that 41% of such attacks were malicious, 33% were due to system glitches and 26% resulted from employee or contractual negligence.