Re: Lloyds to offer hacker insurance

From: David Lang (dlangat_private)
Date: Tue Apr 28 1998 - 06:52:00 PDT

  • Next message: Joseph S. D. Yao: "Re: Lloyds to offer hacker insurance"

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    Remember what insurance boils down to, a gamble
    
    you are betting that you will need the insurance. 
    The company is betting that you will not.
    
    on this basis ANYTHING can be insured for a profit if the odds are calculated
    correctly.
    
    David Lang
    
    
    On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
    
    > Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:35:45 -0400
    > From: "Marcus J. Ranum" <mjrat_private>
    > To: Firewall Wizards List <firewall-wizardsat_private>
    > Subject: Re: Lloyds to offer hacker insurance
    > 
    > Adam Shostack wrote:
    > >I'm very curious as to what people think of the idea of insurance for
    > >infosec failures.  Will it encourage standards of due dilligence and
    > >due care for the industry, the way bank insurance has driven bank
    > >safes to be stronger and stronger?
    > 
    > I'm sure that it will, so it's a good thing. Presumably the insurance
    > premium will be somehow tied to whether or not you observe due diligence
    > at varying levels. I expect they tie it to some kind of review of
    > existing practices -- much like when you get a million dollar life
    > insurance policy in the US: they draw blood, do an EKG, and urinalysis.
    > Very different from getting a $50,000 life insurance policy. You'll
    > note the quote in the article from the guy from Asset Management
    > Solutions, Inc, which helps with the assessments. About a year ago
    > NCSA (now ICSA) did a similar deal where you could get web site
    > insurance through Prudential, if you first passed their test. I
    > suspect a lot of this is really a game to sell a high-priced ISS
    > scan, which probably costs more than the insurance policy.
    > 
    > Of course, as the CEO of a company that makes the Internet's most
    > butt-kicking network event recorder, I'm thrilled to death to see
    > this kind of thing, because it'll make NFR money. :) One of the
    > things that's got to come up if anyone ever tries to lodge a claim,
    > is proving that the damage was covered by the insurance! Let's say
    > you have "firewall insurance" --- OOOPS you gotta be able to prove
    > they broke in through the firewall, not the dialin server, because
    > you don't have "modem pool insurance"  And was that attack really
    > covered by "firewall insurance"? It might have been an attack
    > applet not covered because you didn't pay for the "java insurance"
    > rider policy. Etc, etc. There's infinite room here for finger
    > pointing. It's going to drive a whole new market for event
    > recording, if it takes off.
    > 
    > My guess is that "security insurance" isn't going to take off in
    > a big way. Companies are already sensitive about spending $$ to do
    > security in the first place -- why would they spend $$$$ to avoid
    > it?
    > 
    > mjr.
    > --
    > Marcus J. Ranum, CEO, Network Flight Recorder, Inc.
    > work - http://www.nfr.net
    > home - http://www.clark.net/pub/mjr
    > 
    > 
    
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