How do you risk manage and profitably underwrite cyber attacks in the home when so many variables are almost impossible to predict, not least the human behaviour of the attacker and the victim? The answer right now, is you don’t, you simply pass the financial risk to society.

I get predictive modelling and the use of artificial intelligence for “mediocre risks”, credit card or expense fraud etc. but not low probability/high impact cyber attacks.

From first hand experience, I have watched intelligent people manipulated by a regular phone call into opening their bank accounts, sharing personal details, spending money on spurious computer security systems, and their bank account and credit cards charged thousands of pounds. The response is nearly always a version of “they were so believable”. The planting into the mind of the victim that they are under attack from an aggressive third party, clever images and the “friendly voice” (man in the middle) that is here to protect them. Misplaced trust, nothing more.

Criminal agencies awash with competing priorities on their time, money and energy rarely respond or catch the villains. If they do the complexity and time taken to report a crime, is much greater and longer than the crime itself. It is a disincentive. We all pay for it through higher insurance premiums, bank charges and taxes and worsening mental health.

Until such time that there is serious “pushback” (electorate and politicians), the quality of our lives will come at an ever increasing personal and business cost.