SINGAPORE - Verizon Enterprise Solutions and Nanyang Technology University's (NTU) Business School are joining forces to analyze and better understand economic and insurance loss experienced by global insurers from cybersecurity incidents.

Leveraging the VERIS Community Database (VCDB) and Verizon's risk management expertise, NTU will create a new programme that will develop data analytics capabilities for the insurance industry. The VCDB, which contains publicly available and anonymized breach data, is based on a global framework for recording and describing security incidents that Verizon created and manages for the development of its annual Data Breach Investigations Report series.

Today, the VCDB includes more than 7,000 security incidents gleaned from real-life data breaches over a period of 12 years.

The research programme is part of NTU's Cyber Risk Management Project ('CyRiM'), a public-private partnership project involving industry, academia and Government. Launched in 2016, CyRiM is supported by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), and will define and recommend advanced cyber risk protection and prevention policies to the Singapore Government.

"The sharing of data breach information is not only vital in the fight against cybercrime but also in understanding how a breach can impact an organization's reputation and operations," said Rich Montgomery , group vice president at Verizon Enterprise Solutions. "Verizon is a strong advocate of the continued sharing of cybercrime information, as our VERIS community initiative demonstrates. We are pleased that our data is able to help Singapore's ongoing initiatives in both Cybercrime prevention, and Fintech innovation."

Although cyber insurance adoption rates remain at under 10%, the insurance industry is preparing for a sharp uptake of up to 40% by 2020.