Date of Award
5-2023
Document Type
Honors Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Political Science
Advisor/Committee Chair
Unal Tatar
Committee Member
Zsofia Barta
Abstract
The demand for cyber insurance has accelerated in recent years due to the increased frequency and severity of cyber-attacks. The NotPeyta cyberattack, which spread to countries and systems across the globe and is estimated to have caused over $10 billion in damages, is one example. These kinds of catastrophic cyber incidents are causing insurers to raise premiums and tighten their policies, creating a significant gap in protection in the market. In response to this problem, the United States Treasury Department issued a Request for Comment regarding the potential for a federal insurance response to catastrophic cyber incidents. The aim of this thesis is to investigate what a federal backstop for cyber insurance could look like and how different groups feel about its potential creation. I analyze the submitted comments and additional open-source information to assess the opinions that the U.S. government and the cybersecurity and insurance industries each have towards a federal backstop. Looking specifically at opinions on the scope of coverage, catastrophe threshold, and policyholder requirements, I determine that while all three groups support its creation, there is significant variation in how each group pictures a federal backstop.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Bace, Brianna, "The Insurer of Last Resort: Investigating a Federal Insurance Backstop for Catastrophic Cyber Incidents" (2023). Political Science. 43.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/honorscollege_pos/43