Cloudflare partners with leading cyber insurers and incident response providers
Cloudflare has announced partnerships with leading cyber insurance companies to help businesses manage their risks online.
The company says eligible Cloudflare customers can qualify for discounts or other added benefits from insurance providers like At-Bay, Coalition, and Cowbell Cyber by using Cloudflare to protect any of their websites, applications, employees, and corporate networks.
Cloudflare has also announced new relationships with prominent incident response providers CrowdStrike, Mandiant, and Secureworks, enabling them to rapidly refer companies under attack.
As cyberattacks increase in volume and severity, the number of businesses selecting cyber insurance has surged from 26% in 2016 to 47% in 2020. And some insurance companies have had to raise premiums to cover their costs.
Cloudflare says in the second quarter of 2021 alone; cyber insurance premiums rose by more than 25%. It says rising costs and more stringent insurance requirements have left some businesses unable to access or afford policies, without options. This has resulted in the rise of a new generation of insurance startups over the past five years.
"We're helping protect millions of organisations every day, and cyber insurers understand the benefit that brings to keeping a company protected online," says Cloudflare co-founder and CEO, Matthew Prince.
"Similar to a safe-driving discount granted through auto insurance, now companies can get discounts just for using Cloudflare to protect their organisations. By working closely with some of the most prominent cyber insurers and incident response providers, we're now helping businesses to manage their risk online comprehensively."
In Q3 2021, Cloudflare automatically mitigated one of the world's largest DDoS attacks that hit a customer in the financial services industry. It says the ability to thwart and prevent an average of 76 billion attacks per day is attractive to cyber insurers who are faced with covering a rapidly growing customer base and a more complex threat landscape.
"By offering better pricing to companies who implement stronger controls, like Cloudflare's Comprehensive DDoS Protection, we help customers understand how best to reduce risk," At-Bay co-founder and CEO, Rotem Iram.
"Incentivising our customers to adopt innovative security solutions like Cloudflare, combined with At-Bay's free active risk monitoring, has helped reduce ransomware in At-Bay's portfolio 7x below the market average."
Joshua Motta, Co-founder and CEO of Coalition, says, "It's incredible what Cloudflare has done to create a safer Internet. When Cloudflare's technology is paired with insurance, we're able to protect businesses in an entirely new way."
"We're excited to offer Cloudflare customers enhanced cyber insurance coverage alongside Coalition's active security monitoring platform to help businesses build true cyber resilience with an always-on insurance policy."
Every minute is crucial when a business is under attack. Incident response companies work hard to get a network back online or restore traffic to a website after an attack.
"The speed in which a company can identify, investigate and remediate a threat heavily determines how it will fare in the end," says CrowdStrike Services senior VP, Thomas Etheridge.
"Our partnership with Cloudflare provides companies with the ability to take action rapidly and contain exposure at the time of an attack, enabling them to get back on their feet and return to business as usual as quickly as possible."
