N Oct. 8, 1871, so the story goes, Catherine O’Leary’s cow knocked over a lantern and started the Chicago fire that destroyed roughly half the city. A modern version of that disaster might be a worldwide electronic meltdown started by a single computer virus. “The absolutely worst events would be a very aggressive global spread of a virus or a hacking attack on crucial parts of the infrastructure of the Net, taking down a whole continent,” said Urs Baumeister, product manager for casualty insurance at Swiss Re, the world’s second-largest reinsurance company, after Munich Re. Lesser but still serious damage could include the loss of power or phone service. “One day we could have a household name that simply goes out of business, because the trust they built up over 90 years of time has been lost because they were unable to take care of their customers over a period of days due to a virus,” said D. K. Matai, chief executive of mi2g, a computer security company in London. Despite the potential losses, companies are not buying insurance against electronic sabotage, in many cases because they are not aware that their existing policies do not cover it. Full Story
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