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Act of war against .... Merck, a company? I've heard of some circuitous logic to deny insurance claims, but this was not an act of war against Merck, which BTW

Act of war against .... Merck, a company? I've heard of some circuitous logic to deny insurance claims, but this was not an act of war against Merck, which BTW isn't a country, so by definition, one can't go to war with it? Well, maybe hyperbolically a competitor might, but unlike real war, they're bound by the rules and laws of civil society This is the very definition of an accident, if the article is to be believed, with Merck not even being the target. Pay up insurers, this is why you exist. Further, what is the point of insurance, especially for sensitive IP laden companies like pharma research, if there's no protection against nationa-state attacks, which isn't outside the realm of possibility for such companies.

marvin 7y ago
While I’m opposed to using legal terms to weasel out of an insurance claim, it’s an interesting question. If Russia deliberately dropped a bomb on Merck’s factory, it would unquestionably be an act of war. Likewise if they dropped a bomb on a neighboring plant and also accidentally destroyed Merck’s plant. But dropping a bomb on a facility in Ukraine, with equally destructive shrapnel destroying facilities all over the world? Knowing that using this weapon can easily cause such collateral damage? We barely have the terminology for discussing this type of warfare. The initial attack was an act of war, certainly. Beyond that, we have to come up with definitions and reactions. At the very least, it’s a subject for diplomatic channels, maybe even sanctions.
- boomboomsubban 7y ago
  >If Russia deliberately dropped a bomb on Merck’s factory, it would unquestionably be an act of war. The US does this all the time and it is not labeled an act of war. The most famous incident is the Al-Shifa medical facility, but this is common practice in the "war on terror."
  - occamrazor 7y ago
    In insurance context any bombing by military airplanes falls under war exclusion clauses.
- gchamonlive 7y ago
  Dropping a bomb is not an act of war because of the target itself. It is because to do it you have to violate the country's whole security system and cause damage to the country's real state, which is an act of war, whereas to invade a company's cluster of computers you don't have to compromise the country's whole cybernetwork. It is interesting though to think about aftermath. If it is not an act of war, one can compromise a country's economy without going directly against the country itself.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >Dropping a bomb is not an act of war because of the target itself. It is because to do it you have to violate the country's whole security system and cause damage to the country's real state, which is an act of war, whereas to invade a company's cluster of computers you don't have to compromise the country's whole cybernetwork. I would counter that you don't need to violate all of the US's defense to bomb Hawaii and we all know how that was received. So yes, a state sending assets to go destroy some other state's property within the borders of said state is generally considered an act of war. That said, details matter a lot and these situations are basically handled on a case by case basis.
  - marvin 7y ago
    Deliberate attacks against a country’s economy would probably be handled on a case by case basis through diplomatic channels. E.g. I’d argue that if China announced it would not repay its massive Treasury debts to the US, that would basically be an act of war even if no aggression was used, just due to the extreme destructive effects. And the reaction would be similarly upsetting, although not quite on the level of an unprovoked, large-scale military action. But it quickly becomes a discussion of semantics at that point ;)
    - robocat 7y ago
      > E.g. I’d argue that if China announced it would not repay its massive Treasury debts to the US Other way round: US has “borrowed” money from China
- randcraw 7y ago
  Yeah, this act was wildly indiscriminate. Russia could easily have limited the propagation of NotPetya to Ukraine only, but chose not to. That makes the act irresponsible and comparable to distributing an infectious biological agent via randomly addressed mail bombs that were posted in Kiev. An appropriate response needs to arise from a cooperative authority like the UN or Interpol, and needs a policy suited to address future events before they arise.
diffeomorphism 7y ago
> which BTW isn't a country, so by definition, one can't go to war with it? Suppose North Korea shoots artillery on Samsung factories. Is that not an act of war because they were targeting a company's buildings? The US has some mixed messaging on cracking. On the one hand they reserve the right to consider attacks on them as acts of war (and to respond with bombs) on the other hand they have no reservations about cracking others (e.g. Iran).
- lexs 7y ago
  I would say that it's not an act of war against Samsung but South Korea which should be a difference.
  - ealexhudson 7y ago
    This was corporate property insurance, and it excluded "acts of war". It doesn't matter who the war is between; the fact that a cost was incurred due to war would mean that you cannot claim that cost on the insurance policy. If it only referred to acts against a specific state, then you would have no need to include the wording in the contract as it would be a no-op. Insurance policies have often tried to exclude the highly-unlikely-but-ruiniously-costly coverage; hence the similar "acts of god" exclusions (and obvs there's rarely any disagreement about whether god was specifically the actor). A war is a usually a large-scale event causing a large amount of damage; without excluding it you would expect many insurers to be bankrupted. "Cyberwar" is something of a different matter and I could see why either side would want to litigate to clarify the definition.
blagie 7y ago
That argument doesn't hold water. You don't need to be an intended target or a country for something to be an act of war. If North Korea drops a nuclear bomb on China, and the nuclear cloud does collateral damage in India, that's still damage from an act of war. Acts of war are excluded since insurance is designed to spread cost for isolated events. If my house burns down, everyone chips in to rebuild it. You can't reasonably insure widespread events. If an entire country is demolished, whether by war, flood, or other large-scale natural disaster, insurance would just go under. Things are murky here. But not for those reasons. We can start with there not being a war, continue into covert ops not really being the same as war, and keep going for a while. I do think insurance SHOULD pay for this one. But it's not that simple.
antif 7y ago
Act of war against Ukraine, per the article.
- tchaffee 7y ago
  Not really per the article. The article says there are claims that it was an act of war against Ukraine. It does not provide proof that it was in fact an act of war.
listenallyall 7y ago
>> This is the very definition of an accident How is something deliberately planned and executed, by a military intelligence agency, for weeks or months, an accident? And how are you so sure Merck's IT team didn't fail to have backups, redundancy, security patches, etc. to prevent an attack of any sort from being such a big deal?
- tchaffee 7y ago
  Did that military agency plan for it to damage Merck? Or was that an accident?
  - listenallyall 7y ago
    Are you serious? They planned to launch the equivalent of a digital bomb, knowing full well there would be plenty of collateral damage. Hell no it isn't an "accident" I will put it another way. I feel quite confident the 9/11 bombers did not know, or specifically target, my friends and acquaintances who died in those towers. Therefore, are you going to claim 9-11 was an accident? If I intend to rob a convenience store, and in the process of doing so, my gun goes off and the clerk is shot and killed, was it just an accident?
    - tchaffee 7y ago
      Yes I am serious. Are you? How about we keep this respectful and do away with the condescending tone, which is not really welcome here on Hacker News? 9/11 was presumably intended to damage as much property and kill as many people as possible. So no, the people who died as a result of that terrorist attack against the US were not killed by accident. Yes, if your gun accidentally goes off during a robbery, that is by definition an accident. An accident that could have been avoided if different choices had been made, but still an accident. If the intended target in this case was the Ukraine, and companies in the USA suffered immense damages it's reasonable to ask if those unintended consequences were accidental. Similar to how a bomb dropped on an Italian border in WWII might accidentally kill ally French citizens on the other side of the border. With cyber warfare it becomes much more interesting, because those accidents don't respect physical distance.
sage3 7y ago
did you read the article
throwaway_tech 7y ago
>but this was not an act of war against Merck, which BTW isn't a country, Its an insurance policy...an act of war is a limitation on coverage. No one is saying an act of war was specifically committed against Merck. Merck was damaged, filed a claim with its insurance and the insurer denied coverage because the damage was the result of an act of war (that has nothing to do with Merck being a county or the attack being directed at Merck).

marvin 7y ago

While I’m opposed to using legal terms to weasel out of an insurance claim, it’s an interesting question. If Russia deliberately dropped a bomb on Merck’s factory, it would unquestionably be an act of war. Likewise if they dropped a bomb on a neighboring plant and also accidentally destroyed Merck’s plant. But dropping a bomb on a facility in Ukraine, with equally destructive shrapnel destroying facilities all over the world? Knowing that using this weapon can easily cause such collateral damage? We barely have the terminology for discussing this type of warfare. The initial attack was an act of war, certainly. Beyond that, we have to come up with definitions and reactions. At the very least, it’s a subject for diplomatic channels, maybe even sanctions.

boomboomsubban 7y ago
>If Russia deliberately dropped a bomb on Merck’s factory, it would unquestionably be an act of war. The US does this all the time and it is not labeled an act of war. The most famous incident is the Al-Shifa medical facility, but this is common practice in the "war on terror."
- occamrazor 7y ago
  In insurance context any bombing by military airplanes falls under war exclusion clauses.
gchamonlive 7y ago
Dropping a bomb is not an act of war because of the target itself. It is because to do it you have to violate the country's whole security system and cause damage to the country's real state, which is an act of war, whereas to invade a company's cluster of computers you don't have to compromise the country's whole cybernetwork. It is interesting though to think about aftermath. If it is not an act of war, one can compromise a country's economy without going directly against the country itself.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >Dropping a bomb is not an act of war because of the target itself. It is because to do it you have to violate the country's whole security system and cause damage to the country's real state, which is an act of war, whereas to invade a company's cluster of computers you don't have to compromise the country's whole cybernetwork. I would counter that you don't need to violate all of the US's defense to bomb Hawaii and we all know how that was received. So yes, a state sending assets to go destroy some other state's property within the borders of said state is generally considered an act of war. That said, details matter a lot and these situations are basically handled on a case by case basis.
- marvin 7y ago
  Deliberate attacks against a country’s economy would probably be handled on a case by case basis through diplomatic channels. E.g. I’d argue that if China announced it would not repay its massive Treasury debts to the US, that would basically be an act of war even if no aggression was used, just due to the extreme destructive effects. And the reaction would be similarly upsetting, although not quite on the level of an unprovoked, large-scale military action. But it quickly becomes a discussion of semantics at that point ;)
  - robocat 7y ago
    > E.g. I’d argue that if China announced it would not repay its massive Treasury debts to the US Other way round: US has “borrowed” money from China
randcraw 7y ago
Yeah, this act was wildly indiscriminate. Russia could easily have limited the propagation of NotPetya to Ukraine only, but chose not to. That makes the act irresponsible and comparable to distributing an infectious biological agent via randomly addressed mail bombs that were posted in Kiev. An appropriate response needs to arise from a cooperative authority like the UN or Interpol, and needs a policy suited to address future events before they arise.

diffeomorphism 7y ago

> which BTW isn't a country, so by definition, one can't go to war with it? Suppose North Korea shoots artillery on Samsung factories. Is that not an act of war because they were targeting a company's buildings? The US has some mixed messaging on cracking. On the one hand they reserve the right to consider attacks on them as acts of war (and to respond with bombs) on the other hand they have no reservations about cracking others (e.g. Iran).

lexs 7y ago
I would say that it's not an act of war against Samsung but South Korea which should be a difference.
- ealexhudson 7y ago
  This was corporate property insurance, and it excluded "acts of war". It doesn't matter who the war is between; the fact that a cost was incurred due to war would mean that you cannot claim that cost on the insurance policy. If it only referred to acts against a specific state, then you would have no need to include the wording in the contract as it would be a no-op. Insurance policies have often tried to exclude the highly-unlikely-but-ruiniously-costly coverage; hence the similar "acts of god" exclusions (and obvs there's rarely any disagreement about whether god was specifically the actor). A war is a usually a large-scale event causing a large amount of damage; without excluding it you would expect many insurers to be bankrupted. "Cyberwar" is something of a different matter and I could see why either side would want to litigate to clarify the definition.

blagie 7y ago

That argument doesn't hold water. You don't need to be an intended target or a country for something to be an act of war. If North Korea drops a nuclear bomb on China, and the nuclear cloud does collateral damage in India, that's still damage from an act of war. Acts of war are excluded since insurance is designed to spread cost for isolated events. If my house burns down, everyone chips in to rebuild it. You can't reasonably insure widespread events. If an entire country is demolished, whether by war, flood, or other large-scale natural disaster, insurance would just go under. Things are murky here. But not for those reasons. We can start with there not being a war, continue into covert ops not really being the same as war, and keep going for a while. I do think insurance SHOULD pay for this one. But it's not that simple.

antif 7y ago

Act of war against Ukraine, per the article.

tchaffee 7y ago
Not really per the article. The article says there are claims that it was an act of war against Ukraine. It does not provide proof that it was in fact an act of war.

listenallyall 7y ago

>> This is the very definition of an accident How is something deliberately planned and executed, by a military intelligence agency, for weeks or months, an accident? And how are you so sure Merck's IT team didn't fail to have backups, redundancy, security patches, etc. to prevent an attack of any sort from being such a big deal?

tchaffee 7y ago
Did that military agency plan for it to damage Merck? Or was that an accident?
- listenallyall 7y ago
  Are you serious? They planned to launch the equivalent of a digital bomb, knowing full well there would be plenty of collateral damage. Hell no it isn't an "accident" I will put it another way. I feel quite confident the 9/11 bombers did not know, or specifically target, my friends and acquaintances who died in those towers. Therefore, are you going to claim 9-11 was an accident? If I intend to rob a convenience store, and in the process of doing so, my gun goes off and the clerk is shot and killed, was it just an accident?
  - tchaffee 7y ago
    Yes I am serious. Are you? How about we keep this respectful and do away with the condescending tone, which is not really welcome here on Hacker News? 9/11 was presumably intended to damage as much property and kill as many people as possible. So no, the people who died as a result of that terrorist attack against the US were not killed by accident. Yes, if your gun accidentally goes off during a robbery, that is by definition an accident. An accident that could have been avoided if different choices had been made, but still an accident. If the intended target in this case was the Ukraine, and companies in the USA suffered immense damages it's reasonable to ask if those unintended consequences were accidental. Similar to how a bomb dropped on an Italian border in WWII might accidentally kill ally French citizens on the other side of the border. With cyber warfare it becomes much more interesting, because those accidents don't respect physical distance.

sage3 7y ago

did you read the article

throwaway_tech 7y ago

>but this was not an act of war against Merck, which BTW isn't a country, Its an insurance policy...an act of war is a limitation on coverage. No one is saying an act of war was specifically committed against Merck. Merck was damaged, filed a claim with its insurance and the insurer denied coverage because the damage was the result of an act of war (that has nothing to do with Merck being a county or the attack being directed at Merck).