October 20, 2017
The Council’s General Counsel John Fielding also attended a joint cybersecurity forum hosted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and the Stanford Cyber Initiative on October 11. The forum was designed to provide insight into current cyber threats and the role insurance plays in mitigating risks.
The forum featured panels focusing on understanding current insurance coverages for cyber risks, the range of cyber threat scenarios and identifying potential gaps in cyber insurance coverage and risks. Panelists included state insurance commissioners, academics and industry cyber experts. Richard A. Clarke, former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-Terrorism, provided the keynote address to the regulators and other attendees. Discussions were wide-ranging, with the key takeaway being the tremendous advances in cyber security in the past decade. However, we are still falling behind in terms of securing against cyber-attacks.
The consequences of attacks are also growing exponentially as we are becoming more and more interconnected. Cyber security has to be built-in when designing systems – and it isn’t free. But the costs of doing nothing are greater.