Where companies are victimized by ransomware or email scams, their losses arise from payments made by an officer or employee of the company. In the case of ransomware, a company’s files are held hostage pending payment...more
Corporate policyholders often assume their computer fraud crime insurance will cover so-called social engineering thefts. Reasonably so. Fraudsters commit these crimes by using computers to trick innocent employees into...more
A Mississippi federal district court became the latest to rule that Computer Fraud Transfer and Funds Transfer Fraud coverages were not applicable to losses resulting from an email phishing scam. In Miss. Silicon Holdings,...more
The Situation: Businesses are increasingly at risk of social engineering crimes, and often their commercial insurance policies do not provide the full protection that they expected. The Result: Three recent decisions...more
The Sixth Circuit recently entered a ruling in American Tooling Center, Inc. v. Travelers Casualty and Surety Co. of America, 2018 WL 3404708 (6th Cir. July 13, 2018), soundly rejecting a cyber carrier’s extremely narrow...more
Fraudsters deploy different computer-related techniques but toward the same end – “gaming the system” for their own financial gain. Some victims turn to insurance for recovery. Four recent federal appellate decisions reveal...more
In recent years, courts across the country have considered policyholder’s claims for insurance coverage for so-called social engineering losses, e.g., losses that result from a criminal tricking a policyholder into wiring...more
As the number and sophistication of social engineering attacks increases, victims are examining their insurance policies to see if they are covered. In The Brick Warehouse LP v. Chubb Insurance Company of Canada, 2017 ABQB...more
For the second time in ten days, a federal appeals court ruled a crime insurance policy provides coverage for losses arising from a business email compromise. In American Tooling Center, Inc. v. Travelers Casualty and Surety...more
Scams from business compromise emails (BECs) have been labeled by the FBI as a “$5 billion” problem. Sometimes known as “CEO Fraud,” BECs are where an email, purportedly coming from a high-ranking company official or vendor,...more
Remember the “good” ol’ days when the run-of-the-mill theft involved someone physically taking something tangible? That is so 20th century. Now, thieves and fraudsters are able to use computers and the internet to carry out...more
In an unpublished opinion issued by the Eleventh Circuit in Interactive Communications International, Inc. v. Great American Ins. Co. (No. 17-11712, filed 5/10/18), the appellate court found that where an insurance policy...more
In this month's edition of our Privacy & Cybersecurity Update, we discuss the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party's critique of the Privacy Shield and the Sixth Circuit's decision to consider the issue of computer fraud...more
The number of decisions considering claims for insurance coverage resulting from Business Email Compromise (“BEC”) scams has been increasing, providing policyholders with some hope, and some clarity, in this muddy area....more
The FBI continues to warn that losses are on the rise from business email compromise (BEC) or “social engineering” schemes, which the Bureau describes as: Carried out by transnational criminal organizations that employ...more
Banks have historically been at the forefront of technological advances in commerce. So it should be no surprise that they and other financial institutions were also among the first to suffer losses related to computer fraud...more