NetDiligence is pleased to present its twelfth annual Cyber Claims Study. This report includes incidents that occurred during the five-year period 2017–2021. A total of 7,439 claims were analyzed. While many of the categories over the last five years have remained the same, the data has changed, sometimes dramatically. Sponsoring this year’s study are RSM, Experian Crisis Solutions, Guidewire, The Beckage Firm.

Since 98% of the claims submitted for analysis involved smaller organizations, findings are presented separately for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and large companies. For the purposes of this report, SMEs are defined as organizations with less than $2B in annual revenue, while large companies are defined as organizations with $2B or more in annual revenue. In this year’s study, ransomware was once again the number one cause of loss for SMEs, followed by hackers, business email compromise, staff mistakes, and phishing. Losses in these five categories accounted for 70% of claims and 80% of costs.