Cyber Risk Contagion

Abstract

Financial technologies (fintechs) are continuously expanding, across different markets and financial services. While financial technologies bring many opportunities, such as reduced costs and extended inclusion, they also bring risks, among which include cyber risks, that are difficult to measure. One of the difficulties that arise in the measurement of cyber risks is the interdependence among cyber losses, a problem that has not yet been solved. To fill the gap, this paper proposes a multivariate model for cyber risks, based on their observed time series of counts. The time-varying intensity parameter of the model determines the probability that a cyber attack occurs, and its specification takes not only time but also sectorial interdependence into account. The effectiveness of the proposed model is demonstrated by means of a real cyber loss dataset, in which there exists time and sectorial dependence among different events.