The following podcast contains advertising.

To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast,

become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair.

That's patreon.com slash law fair.

Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings,

rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath.

All these things working together might mean that we never have to pay out,

because we've prevented the catastrophic attack, but even if we do have a catastrophic attack,

anything that is going to cause trillions of dollars of damage and takes down an entire industry,

the government is going to have to step in and rescue it anyway.

I'm Stephanie Pell, senior editor at LawFair,

and this is the LawFair podcast January 11, 2023.

Various press reports have indicated that the Biden administration intends to release its cyber strategy in the coming weeks.

The cyber strategy will likely cover a range of issues.

One potential topic could involve the creation of a federal response or backstop

to the financial exposure risks that insurers and re-insurers face from future catastrophic cyber incidents affecting those that they ensure.

To talk about the pros and cons of a federal backstop for the cyber insurance ecosystem,

I sat down with Brian Cunningham, executive director of the Cybersecurity Research and Policy Institute

at the University of California Irvine, who co-authored the article, Uncle Sam Rhee,

improving cyber hygiene and increasing confidence in the cyber insurance ecosystem via government backstopping.

We talked about what is keeping cyber insurance executives up at night,

why the cyber insurance industry has not incentivized better cyber hygiene by the insured,

...