Employee Negligence Doesn’t Negate Cyber Coverage

A decision from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court summary judgment for the policy holder in a case where the carrier tried to withhold coverage for cyber theft on the grounds the employee had been negligent. In fact, a bank employee had inadvertently left a computer running overnight with a routine cybersecurity measure disabled. The hackers got away with $485,000. Nonetheless, the court said, the “efficient and proximate cause” of the loss was not the employee negligence, and the carrier was on the hook.