Cyber risks are escalating as the price tag attached to cybercrime explodes. While many of the incidents recently in the headlines involved data breaches and ransomware, the risks that face corporate treasuries in particular have been brought home by the mounting costs of business email compromise scams and cyberthefts that involve the SWIFT financial messaging system.

Most notably, hackers stole $81 million from Bangladesh's central bank last year by penetrating the system the bank used to access SWIFT and sending fraudulent payment instructions.

In May, the FBI estimated that business email compromises—scams in which cybercriminals trigger unauthorized payments, often wire transfers, by sending emails that appear to come from a company executive—caused $5.3 billion of losses globally from 2013 to 2016, and U.S. losses of $1.6 billion over that same time frame. "There's definitely a raised awareness and concern," said Craig Jeffery, managing director at Atlanta-based consultancy Strategic Treasurer.