Connect with us

Cyber Security

Sophos Study: MDR Users Claim 97.5% Less in Cyber Insurance

Published

on

Leading cybersecurity provider Sophos has released findings from a new study quantifying the financial impact of various cybersecurity controls on cyber insurance claims. The research compares the effect of endpoint solutions, EDR/XDR technologies, and MDR services on claim amounts, offering valuable insights for both insurers and organizations.

Sally Adam, Senior Director, Solution Marketing at Sophos, said, “Every year, organisations spend huge amounts of money on their cybersecurity. By quantifying the impact of controls on the outcome of cyberattacks, this study enables them to focus their investments on the most cost-effective options. At the same time, insurers have a major influence on cybersecurity spending through the controls they require of organisations wishing to be covered and the discounts they offer when a given scheme is in place. This study enables them to encourage investments that can make a real difference to incident outcomes and the resulting claim amounts.”

The Sophos study reveals a dramatic difference in cyber insurance claims: organizations using MDR services claim a median compensation of just $75,000, a staggering 97.5% less than the $3 million median claimed by organizations relying solely on endpoint solutions. This means that endpoint-only users typically claim 40 times more in the event of an attack. The study attributes this significant reduction to the rapid threat detection and blocking capabilities of MDR services, which can effectively prevent extensive damage.

The study also highlights a clear benefit to combining EDR or XDR with endpoint solutions, as the average insurance claim for users of these tools is just $500,000, which is one-sixth of the $3 million average claim for those using only endpoint solutions.

The Sophos study indicates that the predictability of cyber insurance claims varies significantly depending on the security controls in place. Claims from organizations utilizing MDR services show the highest predictability, suggesting consistent and reliable threat mitigation. This is likely due to the 24/7 expert monitoring, investigation, and response that allows for swift action against threats at any time. Conversely, claims from users of EDR/XDR tools are the least predictable, implying that their effectiveness in preventing major damage heavily depends on the user’s expertise and speed of response.

The Sophos study also reveals significant differences in recovery times from ransomware attacks. Endpoint solution users average a 40-day recovery, while EDR/XDR users take the longest at 55 days. In stark contrast, organizations using MDR services recover the fastest, with an average downtime of just three days. These findings underscore MDR’s effectiveness in minimizing the impact of cyberattacks and highlight the less predictable recovery experiences associated with EDR/XDR tools, whose success is dependent on user expertise.

Adam concludes, “The research confirms what many people instinctively know: the type of security solution used has a significant impact on cyber insurance claims. Cyberattacks are inevitable, but defences are not. These results are a useful tool for organisations wishing to optimise their cyber defence and their return on investment in cybersecurity. They will also be useful for insurers looking to reduce their exposure and offer suitable policies to their customers.”

Cyber Security

GISEC Global 2025: Phishing, Data Breaches, Ransomware, and Supply Chain Attacks Causing Challenges

Published

on

Maher Jadallah, the Vice President for Middle East and North Africa at Tenable, says effective exposure management requires a unified view of the entire attack surface (more…)

Continue Reading

Cyber Security

GISEC Global 2025: A Place Where Innovation, Partnerships, and Leadership Come Together

Published

on

Meriam ElOuazzani, the Senior Regional Director for META at SentinelOne, says, the company will showcase its latest developments in AI-powered security solutions, reinforcing its position as a leader in this area (more…)

Continue Reading

Artificial Intelligence

Cequence Intros Security Layer to Protect Agentic AI Interactions

Published

on

Cequence Security has announced significant enhancements to its Unified API Protection (UAP) platform to deliver a comprehensive security solution for agentic AI development, usage, and connectivity. This enhancement empowers organizations to secure every AI agent interaction, regardless of the development framework. By implementing robust guardrails, the solution protects both enterprise-hosted AI applications and external AI APIs, preventing sensitive data exfiltration through business logic abuse and ensuring regulatory compliance.

There is no AI without APIs, and the rapid growth of agentic AI applications has amplified concerns about securing sensitive data during their interactions. These AI-driven exchanges can inadvertently expose internal systems, create significant vulnerabilities, and jeopardize valuable data assets. Recognising this critical challenge, Cequence has expanded its UAP platform, introducing an enhanced security layer to govern interactions between AI agents and backend services specifically. This new layer of security enables customers to detect and prevent AI bots such as ChatGPT from OpenAI and Perplexity from harvesting organizational data.

Internal telemetry across Global 2000 deployments shows that the overwhelming majority of AI-related bot traffic, nearly 88%, originates from large language model infrastructure, with most requests obfuscated behind generic or unidentified user agents. Less than 4% of this traffic is transparently attributed to bots like GPTBot or Gemini. Over 97% of it comes from U.S.-based IP addresses, highlighting the concentration of risk in North American enterprises. Cequence’s ability to detect and govern this traffic in real time, despite the lack of clear identifiers, reinforces the platform’s unmatched readiness for securing agentic AI in the wild.

Key enhancements to Cequence’s UAP platform include:

  • Block unauthorized AI data harvesting: Understanding that external AI often seeks to learn by broadly collecting data without obtaining permission, Cequence provides organizations with the critical capability to manage which AI, if any, can interact with their proprietary information.
  • Detect and prevent sensitive data exposure: Empowers organizations to effectively detect and prevent sensitive data exposure across all forms of agentic AI. This includes safeguarding against external AI harvesting attempts and securing data within internal AI applications. The platform’s intelligent analysis automatically differentiates between legitimate data access during normal application usage and anomalous activities signaling sensitive data exfiltration, ensuring comprehensive protection against AI-related data loss.
  • Discover and manage shadow AI: Automatically discovers and classifies APIs from agentic AI tools like Microsoft Copilot and Salesforce Agentforce, presenting a unified view alongside customers’ internal and third-party APIs. This comprehensive visibility empowers organizations to easily manage these interactions and effectively detect and block sensitive data leaks, whether from external AI harvesting or internal AI usage.
  • Seamless integration: Integrates easily into DevOps frameworks for discovering internal AI applications and generates OpenAPI specifications that detail API schemas and security mechanisms, including strong authentication and security policies. Cequence delivers powerful protection without relying on third-party tools, while seamlessly integrating with the customer’s existing cybersecurity ecosystem. This simplifies management and security enforcement.

“Gartner predicts that by 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI, up from less than 1% in 2024, enabling 15% of day-to-day work decisions to be made autonomously. We’ve taken immediate action to extend our market-leading API security and bot management capabilities,” said Ameya Talwalkar, CEO of Cequence. “Agentic AI introduces a new layer of complexity, where every agent behaves like a bidirectional API. That’s our wheelhouse. Our platform helps organizations embrace innovation at scale without sacrificing governance, compliance, or control.”

These extended capabilities will be generally available in June.

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Follow Us

Trending

Copyright © 2021 Security Review Magazine. Rysha Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.