As you work to finalize your cyber insurance riders or supplemental policies, it’s important to pay attention to the language around what is specifically covered. To ensure you’re receiving the coverage desired, the first step is to understand the difference between hacking and phishing, and how this is being applied to your policy, and to ensure the language is mutually interpreted as clearly and uniformly as possible.

Hacking is the use of exploits and vulnerabilities to gain access to and extract information from, disrupt or tamper with a computer system. Hackers break into a system and take information.

Phishing is the use of social engineering via e-mail to trick the recipient into revealing personal or confidential information, or granting access to a computer system either directly or through the installation of malicious software. Phishers convince you to let them into a system or give them information.

Why is this so important to your cyber coverage? Because there’s been some fairly significant litigation around these differences that has supported both the upholding and denial of coverage. Here are 3 examples of cases where interpretation of the rider/supplemental policy language led to litigation:

Universal American Corp. v. National Union Fire Insurance Co., 37 N.E. 3d 78 (N.Y. June 25, 2015)
Continue Reading Hacking vs. Phishing – and Why the Difference is Important for Cyber Insurance Coverage