Cybersecurity: When Social Engineering Fraud Is Not Covered Under Your Insurance Policy

We live in an age of escalating cybersecurity threats. Many intrusion threats are social engineering attacks, which seek to gain entry to an organization's computer systems via its personnel and not a hack to the computer systems. While not technical in nature these attacks can effect substantial harm on an organization and need to be taken as seriously as the technical attacks.

A classic risk mitigation step on every organizations checklist is to implement thoughtful internal controls with appropriate checks and balances to seek to prevent fraud.

Another classic risk mitigation step on every organizations cyber perils checklist is to consider securing adequate insurance to cover the specific kinds of computer security risks. A recent decision of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, The Brick Warehouse LP v. Chubb Insurance Company of Canada, 2017 ABQB 413 [The Brick], shows that one has to pay time and attention to what coverage an organization is actually