The Matrix

The increase in cyber breaches and hacks has resulted in litigation, some involving policy interpretation, and some involving new theories of liability. The two cases described below are illustrations of the types of issues that businesses, insureds and insurers continue to face as result of cyber liability. In the first case, the court found that a traditional general liability policy could provide coverage for a cyber breach, a result likely not anticipated by the insurance carrier, nor possibly by the insured. The second case involves injury and death, allegedly caused by a hospital’s inability to use monitoring equipment during a birth because the equipment was inoperable due to a ransomware attack, that likely would be covered under a traditional medical malpractice policy despite the fact that it was a cyber attack that gave rise to the claim for injury and medical negligence.