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Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

nytimes.com

61–70 of 91 posts

Re: Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

#61
Interestingly, this might be the solution for digital security.

Get a nany state (Hello California) to force companies to have Insurance for Cyberattack.

Insurance companies will learn instantly how to do due diligence for-real (as opposed of for compliance certification) to decide if they get clients or not.

Companies then, forced to have insurance, will have to implement minimal safeguards to be accepted in the insurer policy requirements.

Problem solved.

Re: Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

#62
post #34

It might actually be a good thing in the long term as insurance companies may require 3rd party audits and that you comply with basic security practices.

More like in the short term. A friend of mine just got a job at a SF startup for that. They're a consultancy which evaluates computer security for insurance companies, before they insure a business. She used to work on AI for intrusion detection, so they're hiring serious people for this. There are specialty insurance companies which cover specific risks and know how to evaluate them. The classic is The Hartford Stea…

> They're a consultancy which evaluates computer security for insurance companies, before they insure a business.

Can you share the name of the company?

Re: Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

#63
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

auto-pilot requires the driver to be in the vehicle, i'm guessing this was the summon feature activated from their app? what a complete waste

If this is what happened, it's not that stupid on the part of the customer. Or perhaps better phrased, it's within the realm of what I would expect some users to do given this feature. Tesla should have accounted for this.

That feature (Advanced Summon) isn't even out yet. Only a tiny fraction of beta testers have it, so it's unlikely that this idiot has the feature.

Secondly, Tesla specifically states that you must have the car in line of sight before you enable Summon (which only goes straight forward and backward by 25 feet), so this guy is absolutely a complete moron for doing that.

Re: Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It lets you go forward and back. Only works if you are within Bluetooth range and keep your finger on the button in the app. If you let go the car stops. It will actually make minor turns to avoid hitting stuff. Though apparently not going off cliffs. Good for a party trick but in general I have yet to find a good real use case for it. Using it without being able to see your car is pure idiocy.

>Good for a party trick but in general I have yet to find a good real use case for it. It's particularly hilarious when you and several buddies are watching the meter maid try to put a ticket on it. It's probably occasionally useful for adjusting a car in the driveway but yeah, it's 99% party trick. It could theoretically be useful for attaching a trailer but most Tesla owners aren't doing that and the collision dete…

It's great for parking in cramped spaces, at least at home (where you won't get yelled at in a public parking lot). I use it daily so that I can get out of my car before parking it in my carport next to my neighbor's giant SUV.

Re: Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

#65
post #45

There's massive room in the market for a security-first company that offers insurance as a guarantee. This company would essentially operate as the security team for clients and put in contractually enforced policies and follow through on implementation. If a client decides to not implement required security practices, then their policy immediately gets dropped. This is the only scalable way I'd see to implement real…

Our startup is working on this problem, initially for the javascript ecosystem. We’re offering insurance against vulnerabilities in javascript dependencies: https://bitauth.com/

We have open source developer tooling for signing and verifying signatures of javascript packages, and we’re offering security as a service, backed by up to $1M in insurance coverage.

We’re still in beta, but we’d love feedback from HN!

Re: Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

#66
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On one hand, how are insurers supposed to properly cost... That's more or less the core competency of insurance providers...

Well, no argument there, but I wrote more words in that sentence that you cut off. My point is, that a "cyber attack" is poorly constrained, compared to something like a fire or a flood... a company only has so many assets, valued at $X that are liable to be burned to the ground or ruined by a flood, and these constraints can be modeled and adjusted for. Perhaps I am mistaken, I don't see a cyberattack as being anala…

Well a fire can do anything from cause a slight smell -- bread toaster or battery dropped in to a metal bin, maybe -- all the way to complete destruction of property and loss of lives, potentially ending the business. Seems relatively analogous in that respect to cyber attack?

Re: Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

#67
post #32

its pretty spectacular what major insurance does not cover in the digital context. For example, I work as an automotive engine mechanic for a small chain of midwestern shops. Recently we had a Tesla owner drive in for servicing a recalled suspension control arm. We were approved to do the work by Tesla and had the parts shipped directly from California. once the work was completed, we informed the customer in the wai…

You wouldn't happen to have captured this on video, would you? I'm not sure if this is more unfortunate or hilarious.

Re: Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is what happened, it's not that stupid on the part of the customer. Or perhaps better phrased, it's within the realm of what I would expect some users to do given this feature. Tesla should have accounted for this.

That feature (Advanced Summon) isn't even out yet. Only a tiny fraction of beta testers have it, so it's unlikely that this idiot has the feature. Secondly, Tesla specifically states that you must have the car in line of sight before you enable Summon (which only goes straight forward and backward by 25 feet), so this guy is absolutely a complete moron for doing that.

> Secondly, Tesla specifically states that you must have the car in line of sight before you enable Summon

Just how explicitly is this instruction presented? For better or worse, I don't think you can expect users to read everything presented to them. (Partly because we bombard them with cookie notices, ads, and other crap)

Re: Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

#69
post #61

Interestingly, this might be the solution for digital security. Get a nany state (Hello California) to force companies to have Insurance for Cyberattack. Insurance companies will learn instantly how to do due diligence for-real (as opposed of for compliance certification) to decide if they get clients or not. Companies then, forced to have insurance, will have to implement minimal safeguards to be accepted in the ins…

If the business lost $100M as claimed, they may want to pay for cyber-attack insurance without being required to do so.

Re: Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack

#70
post #7

This is messy. On one hand, how are insurers supposed to properly cost and be able to provide payouts for a "cyberattack", which might be anything from "our company website was DDoSed for 30 minutes and we lost 50 customers" to "our production lines were shut down and our company ground to a halt for two weeks"? On the other hand, if insurers know they can invoke a cyberwarfare clause and deny a claim, even if the at…

> how are insurers supposed to properly cost and be able to provide payouts for a "cyberattack", which might be anything from "our company website was DDoSed for 30 minutes and we lost 50 customers" to "our production lines were shut down and our company ground to a halt for two weeks"?

The same way they properly cost and provide payouts for, say, fire which might be anything from "one room got slightly scorched" to "the entire building burned down".

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