Individuals afraid of cyber-attacks may soon be able to buy insurance that would allow them to clean up the damage caused by hackers.

The insurance company Axa is already offering such policies in France and is looking at devising a similar policy for the UK market.

Nicolas Moreau, a senior executive at the French insurance company, said the policy, which is sold as an add-on to house insurance, was intended to clean up private images posted online rather than hide information legitimately published.

Speaking on the fringes of the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, where the risk of cyber-attack became a topic of debate, Moreau said: “If your reputation has been damaged, or your kids’ reputation, we have people to clean up the issue.”

The aim, he said, was not to remove news articles but private information made public. He gave the example of images of a teenage girl taken by her boyfriend. “We’re not looking at dictators trying to improve their reputations,” he said.

Moreau did not give a timescale for when such insurance might be available in the UK and said the company was looking at how best to develop it.

He said cyber-attacks on infrastructure such as stock exchanges, the payments system or energy supplies “could be as effective as a bombing of a city”.

Axa, which hires hackers to test its own online security, sells insurance to companies to cover any liabilities they face as a result of a cyber-attack.

Moreau was making his first visit to Davos to discuss climate change, a major topic for debate among delegates after the former US vice-president Al Gore launched his 24-hour concert Live Earth to promote public awareness of climate change.