Aon has bought Canadian-based cyber security firm Cytelligence Inc to expand its coverages in the cyber market.

Aon said in a statement the buy would widen its cyber coverages “at a time when cyber claims are almost doubling year-over-year”.

Cytelligence provided a wide range of cyber services to help organsiations strengthen their security position and respond to cyber security threats, ie incident response advisory; digital forensic expertise; security consulting services; and cyber security training for employees.

The 2019 Cybersecurity Almanac published by Cisco and Cybersecurity Ventures predicted cyber events would cost $US6tr ($A8.9tr) a year by 2021, as companies were digitising most of their processes and were often operating remotely.

Aon said global cyber insurance premiums were expected to grow from $US4bn in 2018 to $US20bn by 2025.

According to Aon’s 2019 Global Risk Management Survey, cyber-attacks were identified as a top-10 risk facing organisations and was predicted to be one of the top three risks for organisations in 2022.

“As the number of network intrusions, data breaches, ransomware attacks and similar threats continues to increase in both frequency and severity, expertise in cyber incident response becomes critical to organisations and insurance companies,” Aon cyber solutions CEO Jason Hogg said.

Cytelligence would join Aon’s growing cyber solutions portfolio, which combined digital risk management services, security services, professional risk solutions and a global risk consulting practice.

The buy added to Aon’s 2016 acquisition of Stroz Friedberg and now enabled Aon’s cyber solutions to offer a more “holistic portfolio of services” to clients, from proactive security services and incident response, to risk quantification and insurance broking.

Cytelligence CEO Daniel Tobok said: “Together, we will deliver complete proactive solutions – from risk assessment, cyber risk policy underwriting to secure insurance coverage to protect critical assets, to cyber breach response, effective and efficient cyber incident remediation, meticulous data collection and data preservation.”

“Put simply, everything that is connected to the internet can be compromised. Proactive companies and their boards are preparing now with proactive actions with penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, security audits and training of their employees.”

Cytelligence, which was established in 2016, now has offices in Toronto, Ottawa, New York, San Francisco and Miami. The firm employs professionals in cyber security and education, investigations and forensic analytics.