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bare1ythere · 4 years

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Tape Recorders and the Broken Camera - A Theory

This came to me yesterday and I then spent ~2 hours writing this out. It’s Incredibly self indulgent and probably a bit ramble-y but sometimes you need to let yourself say and much as you want about your hyperfixation.. as a treat.

Word count is 1.5k, let me know what you think!!

TLDR: The Tape Recorders were able to manifest within Upton House as both they and the broken camera are artifacts of the Extinction. (Reasoning under the cut!)

As a start, I think it’s important to think about how Smirke’s 14 as a categorization system is more or less useless, but only about as useless as the categorization of things in real life. As much as a lot of folks’d like it to be (me included), nothing is really clearcut. In the context of TMA, consider the fear that your life, or life in general, is insignificant. Would this belong to The Vast (Insignificance and being small in the grand scheme of things) or The End (The inevitable end of your life, and the end of your impact in the universe)? Both? I think the answer to that depends on who you ask, honestly. Not only that, but there’s plenty of statements that don’t have a clear entity attached to them. Binary, Thrown Away, and Confession are a few examples of these.

The truth is that Smirke’s list of 14 isn’t as clear cut as we’d like to think. Trying to put things into clear cut boxes is something humans have been doing for forever, and Robert Smirke’s attempts at understanding The Fears are no different. The Fears are really just one amorphous thing, a spectrum (“colours except if colours hated [us]” (MAG111)) that doesn’t really fit any one definition without exceptions.

I think remembering this is important when thinking about how Jon, Martin, and co are going to try to reverse The Change. Using the Web or the Eye or some other plot-important power to reverse the apocalypse doesn’t seem likely to me since these fears don’t Really exist, and are just the names we call aspects of the one amorphous Entity that feeds on fear.

(“the Fears[…] can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?” (MAG160))

This is also relevant now considering how the tape recorders were still able to manifest in Salesa’s oasis, outside of the influence of both the Eye AND the Web.

So how was this possible? For the entire podcast it seemed that Jon’s tape recorders were Eye aligned. I mean, they’re an Eye avatar’s tape recorders for a reason. However, they aren’t a staple of an Archivist’s abilities; there were archivists before tape recorders existed (MAG53), and notably, Gertrude never used them when reading statements for herself (MAG111):

ARCHIVIST: Did [Gertrude] read statements?

GERARD: Sometimes. If she was getting shaky. They perked her up, I think. Feeding the Eye, you know? I’d sometimes hear her through the wall, just reading into the air, feeling it all.

ARCHIVIST: She… she didn’t use a tape recorder?

GERARD: Not when I was with her. She travelled light. Left things behind.

That means the tape recorders are unique to Jon rather than The Archivist as a role.

I’ve seen a lot of theories about the tape recorders being manifestations of the Web instead, but despite how cool these are, I don’t think thats true. For one, how do randomly-manifesting tape recorders listening in on what is happening to you feed the fear of being manipulated or losing control? The recorders themselves are passive; they almost never impact the actions of the characters themselves. In fact, most of the time they’re completely ignored - especially in S5. Though it’s true that Web-touched artifacts like Jon’s lighter often get swept past and left unconsidered to benefit the Web’s plan, that isn’t really what’s happening here. They’re very aware that these tape recorders aren’t normal (MAG161):

MARTIN: Hey – Hey, when did you start recording?

ARCHIVIST: (confusion) I – didn’t. I only brought one, and I’ve been using it to play the tapes.

MARTIN: Oh. (sigh) That’s not a great sign.

ARCHIVIST: No. No, it’s not.

And again in MAG181:

SALESA: Now tell me, do you know why there’s a tape recorder here? I noticed it just now, but I don’t believe I actually own one.

ARCHIVIST: Uh… Not really.

MARTIN: They sort of just… follow us round.

This doesn’t really sound like something that would fit the Web. You could argue that the recorders are the Web’s way of getting information on what’s going on with Jon and Martin, but they already use spiders for that. Also, the recorders were still able to manifest within Upton House (!!!) where supposedly no power could get through. But it’s not like there’s some Other eldritch entity unrelated to the Fears that the recorders could be related to, so how was the recorder able to manifest?

I think it has to do with how Salesa’s broken camera is related to the Fears. It was unclear which fear it was aligned to in this episode, only that it feeds on “the quiet worries that come from living in hiding” (MAG181). That’s why I started this whole thing talking about Smirke’s list. I don’t really know which of the fears that would apply to. Honestly, of the main 14, it could apply to a combination: The Dark (fear of not knowing what’s out there beyond your sanctuary), the Lonely (fear of hiding alone for the rest of your life), and the End (Fear of the inevitable collapse of your safe haven and your death.) I really don’t think it could be any one of these fears alone, only a combination could explain the camera’s existence.

The weird thing, though, is that we’ve never really seen an artifact this complicated before. Most artifacts had a pretty basic, non-nuanced relationship to the fears. Never as vague as this camera.

Unless!

THE BROKEN CAMERA IS AN ARTIFACT OF THE EXTINCTION!

If you think about it, all of the aspects I mentioned above for the fear of being in hiding can be connected to the extinction.

The Dark: The Fear of not knowing what’s out there beyond your sanctuary The Extinction: The fear of what’s beyond your safe haven, what’s changed without you being there

The Lonely: The Fear of hiding alone for the rest of your life The Extinction: The fear of being the last person alive, forced to reckon with the changed world/whatever you’re hiding from alone

The End: The Fear of the inevitable collapse of your safe haven and your death The Extinction: The fear of being the last of what’s left of humanity, with the end of your life being the end of all of us

Not only that, but the camera itself is a manmade device (with the extinction having heavy technological themes). It’s also prime real estate to feed on the fears of those with bunkers/doomsday preppers, and Salesa’s acquisition of it was DIRECTLY related to wanting to survive a potential apocalypse. Even if it weren’t inherently extinction related from the beginning, its current use means that the fear it’s absorbing IS extinction related, whether or not that was the reason for its original manifestation.

So with the broken camera being an artifact related to the extinction, what does that mean for the tape recorders?

What if the reason the tape recorders can manifest within the Upton House is because they share an entity with the camera? And they can exacerbate the fear of being in hiding without removing the hiding aspect that makes it work? (after all, the tape recorders did first manifest again after the change when Jon and Martin were in hiding at the safehouse.)

Same with the creature of the Crawling Rot that paid Salesa a visit, the tape recorders can serve to remind the user of the camera that their bunker is not impenetrable. The reason it’s different from the corruption creature is that the tape recorder was Able to manifest within Upton House rather than just wander in. If it’s not related to feeding the same fear as the camera, why would the camera let it in at a risk of ruining its purpose?

The tape recorders’ connection with the broken camera seems to point to them being extinction-aligned, but they also serve as a form of record of How the World Changed and What is Left Without Us. This concept was a huge aspect of S5’s extinction statement (MAG175) as well.

This raises a lot of questions about why the tape recorders manifest for Jon specifically. Is he an extinction-aligned eye avatar? Are they not Really his, but manifest around him as they recognize his importance in the story of the apocalypse (which would make sense, since tapes have manifested for Just martin throughout S4 and S5)? What does this mean for the extinction and how the Change can be reversed? I’m not really sure to be honest!! I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Starting at the beginning of S5, though, I thought that the podcast had to end with Jon’s death, as the tape recorders, a part of Jon, are the way we hear what actually happens in the podcast. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case anymore. The recorders, as manifestations of the extinction, wanted to drink in the fear of an incoming/ongoing disaster. It’s extremely likely they wouldn’t care to hear the relief of a saved world.

#the magnus archives #tmaspoilers #mag181 #tma #magpod #tma meta #shut up me #This is the most self indulgent thing ive ever written #I almost didnt post it bc i mainly wrote it out for myself but I thought i might as well #This idea might also be something ive reblogged in the past but its also just fun to look through the transcripts #for proof relating to the theories you like c:#MAG181: *is a relatively chill episode*#Me disentangling myself from loads of red string: WHAT

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haberdashing · 4 years

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i want you to straighten out my tomorrow (2/?)

The last thing Jon remembers is working into the night in the Archives in early 2016. Now he’s in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Scotland, with Martin Blackwood as his only companion. Obviously Jon’s missed something along the way here…

Inspired by beloved of jon, though it can be read separately.

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2

on AO3

Jon woke up slowly, his mind still filled with all the details of the dream--the nightmare--he’d just had. One supernatural horror unfolded after another, and all Jon could do was stand there and watch, unable to intervene as victim after victim went through the most traumatic moment of their lives...

It would have been easy to write off as just an odd nightmare and nothing more, except that one of the horrors he’d witnessed had been the events outlined in Naomi Herne’s statement. He hadn’t even remembered that clearly what she looked like, not consciously, but it was definitely her there, definitely her stuck in that calm, lonely graveyard that she had described so vividly to him before.

Another question to add to his long list of them, perhaps.

Part of Jon expected to wake up somewhere more familiar, in the Archives or in his own bed, to find out that what he’d gone through with Martin in the middle of the night had itself just been a strange dream, but no, he was still in that unfamiliar bed with its scratchy blanket on top of him.

The bed seemed awfully big now that he took it in properly, without Martin taking up space on it. Too big for one person, it seemed. Or too big for him, at least, small and skinny as he was--and a quick glance at his arms suggested that if anything, he’d only grown skinnier in the time that had passed without him knowing it.

It wasn’t as dark in the room now as it had been, as light was seeping in from a nearby window, and Jon, having determined that he’d gotten as much rest as he was likely to get any time soon, stood up and approached the window with a few shaky steps.

Before he opened the blinds, Jon half-expected the view beyond to be the skyscrapers and asphalt of London, but instead there was a wide open field of grass reaching out to the horizon, with little to break it up in the space between. A few trees, a handful of paths (roads, if one were feeling generous, but they weren’t nearly as neatly established as most roads Jon had encountered before) crisscrossing the area. Two cows in the distance, or what Jon assumed were cows at least, though they were little more than indistinct blobs from this far away.

Daisy’s safehouse, apparently, was in the middle of bloody nowhere.

Which made sense, really, for a safehouse, Jon supposed. His mental picture of the situation just hadn’t shifted enough for him to expect it, to expect that he really had gone from London to God-knows-where seemingly overnight. But as Jon looked out at that field, the reality of the situation sank in a bit more.

Whatever the truth of all this was, it wasn’t something he could get through with just a good night’s sleep.

Jon stared out the window for a long minute before shaking his head and stumbling into the bathroom. His desire to cleanse himself however possible had faded away by now, but still, he knew neglecting basic hygiene would only lead to further problems.

Which was all well and good until he reached the sink and saw that there were two toothbrushes there, one purple and one green, and he had no idea which was his.

Presumably Jon could call out to Martin--he hadn’t seen him since waking up for a second time, but he was likely still in the safehouse, perhaps still sleeping on the couch that Jon had yet to encounter--and ask for clarification, but... well, of all the questions Jon wanted to ask Martin that morning, “which toothbrush is the one I’ve been using lately” was pretty far down on the list and seemed more likely to kill further conversation than to encourage it.

So that would have to wait.

A quick use of the toilet, a thorough washing of his hands with hand soap that apparently contained the scent of “acorn spice,” and Jon found himself in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at his reflection within it.

His hair was significantly longer than he remembered, which hadn’t entirely escaped his notice up until that point, as a few strands had fallen into his field of vision periodically--running one hand through it, it seemed like there were a handful of patches that were slightly shorter than the rest, but even those weren’t as short as he’d been keeping his hair cut recently from what he remembered. Much of his hair was covered in gray streaks, too, which wasn’t entirely new, but his premature graying had clearly only gotten worse as the years went by. (Also, his hair didn’t feel especially greasy or oily, which was probably a good sign, certainly better than the alternative.)

What had escaped Jon’s notice up until that point were all the scars he’d managed to accumulate that weren’t on his hands.

The small scars he’d noticed the night before were apparently not just on his hands and arms, but dotted his entire body. His throat had a raised pink line on it that looked disturbingly like someone had tried to slit it and nearly succeeded. The shirt he was wearing, which was over-sized and plaid, didn’t quite cover another scar on his shoulder, another line that was more jagged than the one on his throat.

Good lord, what had the last two and a half years of his life been like?

Well. Only one way to find out, Jon supposed, and that wasn’t by standing there and wondering about it. Though he did spare a moment to study each scar carefully, his mind filling with half-baked speculations about what might have caused each one, before walking away, leaving the bathroom and the bedroom both behind.

Martin was not, in fact, still sleeping on the couch, as Jon quickly discovered upon entering the next room, a kitchen and dining room combination in which Martin was busy cooking away. The smells of a few different foods hit him at once, far overpowering the faint scent of acorn spice soap lingering on Jon’s hands and melding together into something that just smelled like... breakfast. A real, proper breakfast, specifically, the likes of which Jon hadn’t had in years, not a cereal bar or an over-sized cup of tea that he grabbed on his way to work.

Jon took a few steps further into the room, and Martin looked up at Jon, and Jon looked back at Martin, and... God, Martin’s face just lit up when he saw Jon, in a way that made him wonder what he possibly could have done to deserve such clear affection. Surely the way he’d treated Martin before couldn’t have endeared him to Martin much...

“Have you figured out how you’re going to start explaining all this yet?”

Jon tried to keep his tone light, despite everything, but Martin’s face still fell at the sound of his words. The care in his expression wasn’t gone, exactly, but it was mixed with something else now--concern, guilt, anxiety, sorrow? Jon had never been the best at reading faces, and now he felt that skill lacking more than ever.

“Not exactly, but I’ve at least figured out a bunch of reasons behind it being so hard to do in the first place.” Martin’s tone sounded fairly light as well, but Jon suspected any levity to be found there was as forced as it had been in his own voice.

“Please do elaborate.”

“I mean, the main one’s that you won’t believe any of it.” Martin paused his speech momentarily to flip something over with a spatula, and as he continued his gaze remained focused on what he was preparing rather than turning back towards Jon. “It was hard enough to believe when it all happened, really, and that was it coming in bits and pieces, not just explaining years of weirdness in one fell swoop. Plus you always were such a skeptic...”

“About that. If you’re saying all this relates back to the supernatural...”

“Yes?” Martin glanced back at Jon for a moment before turning back to his food preparation.

Jon stumbled over to the table, which was already set for two with still-steaming mugs of tea, and took a seat in the nearest chair. (Was he imagining that pain in his leg, or was there another scar there, just waiting to be found?)

“I’m willing to hear you out. I, I do believe in the supernatural, actually. Much as I try to pretend otherwise.”

“Ah, alright, good.” Martin paused for a brief moment. “That makes sense, actually, you did tell me something like that before.”

Jon’s pulse quickened as half-repressed memories of supernatural childhood trauma came flooding back. He didn’t remember telling anyone about that particular story. Had Martin somehow ended up becoming the exception to that rule, or was he alluding to something less specific?

“What exactly did I tell you before?”

“Just, uh, that you feel like you’re being watched when you read the statements, and somehow it felt safer to deny them all. Though it wasn’t safer, in the end, it really wasn’t...” Martin let out a strangely somber laugh and a shake of the head before adding, “The being watched bit makes more sense now too, come to think of it.”

Sounded like whatever he’d confessed when he couldn’t remember it wasn’t that one particular story, so Jon turned his mind elsewhere. It was true, he did feel watched in the Archives, especially when reading statements, but he didn’t have a clue why that might be... but it sounded like Martin did.

“How so?”

“Well that, uh, gets into some of the big picture stuff, which, I’d been hoping we could talk face to face for that bit, but these pancakes just will not cooperate-” Martin flipped something again, presumably one of the erstwhile pancakes in question, putting more force into the motion than it truly required and making a little grunt of annoyance as he did so. It was weirdly... cute, though Jon hadn’t thought to apply that particular word to Martin before. “Basically the supernatural’s divided into different fear entity... things... and the Institute’s connected to one that involves being watched, or, or just feeling like you’re being watched. So, there’s that.”

There was a lot to process there, and Jon was still silently processing it all, trying to make sure he grasped all the unspoken implications, trying to decide what part of it he wanted clarification on first, when Martin spoke up again.

“Alright, that should do it. Breakfast is ready.”

Jon stood up, noting as he did that yes that definitely was some pain in his leg that hadn’t been there before, but before he could get much farther, Martin brought two plates filled with food to the table and set them down before taking a seat himself.

Pancakes, eggs, bacon... definitely a quality breakfast there, and it all looked well-prepared to boot, except-

“I don’t actually eat-”

“Pork, I know. It’s the veggie stuff. Your favorite brand of the ones they’ve got at the local market, too.”

Jon let out a soft sigh at Martin’s words, which were borne out by a closer inspection of the bacon in question. He took a tentative bite--it was good, and he hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food was there--before speaking up again.

“So you’re saying the Institute itself is supernatural?”

“Cutting right to the chase, huh?” Martin laughed a little, though Jon didn’t see what was so funny about it. “As I understand it, it got founded because Jonah Magnus himself--which, er, remind me to come back to him--wanted to gather knowledge for the fear he’s connected to, the Eye. So the Institute’s not just studying the supernatural, it is supernatural. And, er, so are you, now.”

Jon thought he understood that last sentence. Jon didn’t like what he thought he understood there. (The phrase Mister Spider wants more ran through his mind unbidden.) Jon frantically hoped that he had somehow misunderstood.

“I’m supernatural.”

“Yeah.” Martin laughed again. Jon still didn’t see the humor in it. “But you still have to eat normal people food, so I’d advise doing so before the food goes cold rather than after.”

Jon looked down at his plate, which was still entirely full save for that one small bite of vegetarian bacon. Much as he hated to admit it, Martin had a point about that one.

“Fine, but you’d better keep explaining things while I’m eating.”

“I’ll take that deal.”

Jon nodded and started cutting up his pancakes as Martin began to talk.

“You’re, uh, so, since you’re the Archivist- the, the head Archivist of the Institute, you’re tied to that same fear thing I mentioned before, the Eye. And because of that you’ve got... powers?”

Jon’s mouth was full of pancake now, but he did his best to show his incredulity regardless, through expression rather than words.

Evidently the attempt worked, because Martin held his hands up like he’d been caught in a lie. “Not- not superpowers! Well, kind of superpowers, but not really the same... er... You can, can make people answer your questions, tell you the truth. Even when you don’t mean to sometimes, I think? And make people give statements, sometimes, though that’s, that’s not really a good thing, especially with the whole nightmares thing that one woman mentioned...”

Nightmares. Like the one he’d had that night, with Naomi Herne?

Jon’s mouth was still full of pancake, so he couldn’t actually ask that question, but he tilted his head to one side and did his best to look confused to get his point across.

(Had Martin intended him to have his mouth full at every moment, prevent him from asking questions as they came to mind? Maybe, maybe not. If so, if he was telling the truth about this whole “powers” thing, Jon couldn’t entirely blame him--can’t force someone to answer a question that’s never outright stated, after all. Still, it was certainly inconvenient.)

“The nightmares thing? Oh, this, this one woman came in and said you’d made her tell you her story--like, not even in the Institute, she was just in a cafe somewhere and you came by and made her give a statement whether she wanted to or not. And then after that she kept having dreams about the thing she’d given the statement on, and you were in them, watching her. Hardly think that’s a coincidence there.”

Oh. That was... that made a disturbing amount of sense, actually. He was in their nightmares, they were in his.

Jon swallowed his food and spoke up. “I’m not the only Institute employee here. What about you? Do you have any ‘powers’?”

Jon hadn’t expected the question to be a big deal, really; it was a simple yes or no question, and given how Martin had mentioned that it was specifically the head archivist position that connected Jon to the supernatural, he figured it was probably a no, but better to clarify than assume incorrectly.

Instead of a quick yes or no answer, however, Martin’s only reply was averting his gaze and turning distressingly pale.

Jon pointed his fork in Martin’s general direction as he said, “Going out on a limb here and taking it that’s a yes, then.”

“You’re... you’re not wrong.” Martin’s laugh was almost as much a sigh this time. “But it’s not because of the Institute, not, not directly. It’s not even the same fear thing connected, it’s another one, called the Lonely. I’d... rather not get into the details just yet, if you don’t mind, but you asked about my hair before?” Martin ran one hand along the white streak in his hair. “That’s what did that.”

Jon did mind a bit, not having all the information, not knowing what kind of powers the one other person he’d seen since all this started had at his disposal, not knowing what he’d gone through to get them or why he was so hesitant to explain them. (A small voice in the back of his head said that maybe that curiosity there wasn’t all natural, maybe that burning desire to know every last thing about his current situation was as much “the Eye” as it was just him.) But Jon supposed that Martin deserved some modicum of privacy, at least.

And Martin did say “just yet,” which implied that the story would come out, just not right this minute. It didn’t make Jon any less impatient or curious, but it was good to know it was coming just the same.

“How many of these fear things are there?” And, because Jon couldn’t help himself, “And does one of them have to do with spiders?”

“Fourteen or fifteen, depends who’s counting, and yeah, that’d be the Web, they’ve got spiders and spiderwebs, and also controlling people, manipulation, stuff like that. Haven’t had a ton of statements from them, but there were... enough.”

And then Jon saw in Martin’s eyes a look that was likely similar to that in Jon’s own, wide-eyed and curious and trying to decide exactly what to ask and how. Jon’s suspicion that he hadn’t, in fact, told Martin the Mister Spider story seemed confirmed now, because if he was reading that expression right, Martin didn’t know why Jon would ask about spiders specifically.

If the situation were flipped, if it were Martin alluding to something out there like that without elaborating, Jon would have asked about it in a heartbeat. Jon would have wanted to know, had already shown that by all the questions he’d asked thus far that morning.

But Martin wasn’t Jon, and Martin just shook his head and said, “Suppose that means I’ll keep dealing with any spider that dares show its face in here, then?”

When Martin laughed this time, Jon was a little tempted to join in. (He didn’t, but he considered it, at least. That had to be something.)

“Please.”

“Got it. Not a problem; I always liked spiders anyhow, I can handle them just fine.”

Jon wrinkled his nose a bit at that, remembering how Martin had always tried to stop Jon from squishing any spiders that ended up in the Archives. Jon had assumed it was just because Martin had a big enough heart that he’d do the same for any living thing, be it spiders or mosquitoes or worms, but to hear that Martin actually liked spiders specifically... well. Hopefully it wouldn’t come up again, and they could just quietly agree to disagree on the subject.

“Oh, come off it, they’re not that bad.”

Jon took a deep breath to argue, then decided against it. “Well. Interesting as all this is. None of this explains why we’re here. Where even is here, anyway?”

“Scotland!”

Jon pressed one hand to his temple. He had figured they weren’t terribly close to London, but that was still... a bit further than he’d anticipated.

“The Highlands, specifically. There’s a little village in walking distance but I’ve got a mental block about its name, usually you’re the one who reminds me about that. I just know it sounds quaint, almost like something out of a storybook?”

“...so how, exactly, did we end up in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish Highlands, then?”

“That... well, there’s a lot of parts to that, dunno how good all my explaining will be...”

“Please don’t tell me how difficult it is for you to explain everything I’ve forgotten and think that that gets you out of actually explaining it all.” Jon snapped at Martin before he’d even thought the words through, and it came out rough and harsh and he could see surprise and hurt in Martin’s face, but Jon didn’t regret it, not exactly. If Martin thought he was having a hard time of it right about now... well, he certainly wasn’t the only one, at the very least.

“Right, of course, you’re right, s-sorry, just...” Martin took a deep breath, paused, then pointed his fork at Jon. “I’ll talk. You eat.”

Jon considered this for a moment before nodding and taking an overly-large bite of pancake to show his approval.

Martin nodded back, a hint of a smile appearing on his face before he began to speak.

#tma #tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #personal #my writing

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terabitweb · 5 years

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Original Post from Talos Security Author:

By Jon Munshaw and Joe Marshall.

It’s no longer a question of “if” any given company or organization is going to hit with a cyber attack — it’s when. And when that attack comes, who is willing to take on that risk?

For some groups, it may be that they feel they are fully prepared to take on the challenge of defending against an attack or potentially recover from one. But cyber security insurance offers the ability to transfer that risk to an insurance company that can help you with everything from covering lost revenue to providing incident response as soon as you detect an attack.

Even back in 2016, Cisco Talos called the realm of cyber insurance “new and immature.” But since then, the market has changed drastically, and these kinds of policies are becoming more popular. Still, some businesses have been slow to adopt these policies. According to a study by J.D. Power & Associates and the Insurance Information Institute released in October 2018, 59 percent of businesses still do not have any form of cyber insurance.

But a recent wave of attacks — including the takedown of computer systems in Baltimore, a multi-million-dollar settlement from Equifax over a 2016 data breach, and the recent theft of millions of Captial One customers’ information — shows why it’s important to remain prepared for these kinds of scenarios.

Equifax is still recovering from a massive data breach in 2016 that cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars. A cyber policy the company had covered $125 million in costs associated with the attack, though Equifax admittedly could have used a bigger policy considering the breach cost a total of $1.4 billion.

Is cyber insurance the right choice for your company or organization? We spoke to two cyber insurance experts to get answers to the questions we had around cyber insurance to help you make an informed decision.

How similar is cyber insurance to the insurance we’re all used to (health, car, etc.)?

Turns out, not very. Catherine Rudo, the vice president of cyber insurance at Nationwide, said handing out cyber insurance policies is nothing like other, more conventional policies. Rudo agreed to speak with Talos regarding security policies across the board and said her comments do not reflect the traditional Nationwide policy.

“If you compare cyber to property [insurance], I don’t think there’s a direct comparison,” she said. “Cyber stands on its own. It’s something that’s closer to a liability policy … not everyone needs it in the same way, but everyone needs it.”

Rather than the plug-in and play model of other policies like car insurance, where you’d put in the specific make, model, year and amount of coverage needed for your car, and the insurer spits out a quote, each cyber policy is going to be different.

Rudo said each policy must be assessed and written on a case-by-case basis. There’s a wide variety of factors that need to be considered, including intellectual property, potential extortion payments, liability coverage, etc.

For example, the risks inherent with a cyber policy for an electric company would be entirely different than a clothing store that collects point-of-sale payments.

What do insurers do to calculate initial risk in these policies?

For an insurance company to underwrite a policy for a company, organization or even government entity, the insurer must evaluate several different areas of security risk.

For example, Rudo said that on most cyber insurance applications, the potential insured must answer questions about patching cadence, the number of endpoints that access their network, what (if any) firewalls are in place and what third-party vendors the company works with.

Leslie Lamb, Cisco’s head of risk management, knows firsthand what the application process is like.

Lamb has been a part of every cyber insurance policy Cisco has ever purchased, and said every year, they reassess the policy and always try to get additional coverage in some form or another. She said Cisco’s CISO, Steve Martino, has met with insurance underwriters every year to discuss what Cisco does to limit exposure to attackers, what new intelligence partnerships are in place and how the company mitigates risk.

“We essentially do a roadshow for them,” Lamb said, adding that the process usually starts about 120 days prior to the expiration of Cisco’s current policy.

There’s also the inherent risk that comes with certain industries. For example, public institutions may have a more expensive policy because they handle a large amount of intellectual property, making them a more enticing target.

There’s also the issue of the size of the business — obviously, larger companies are going to be targeted more often than a mom-and-pop corner store.

Rudo said that the premiums may even increase if the potential insured has a higher appetite for risk than another company or organization.

How long have cyber policies been around?

Lamb says a common misconception is that cyber insurance policies have only been around for a few years, when in fact, they’ve existed for about 15 years, even dating back to the Y2K scare.

But Lamb said the popularity of the market has increased dramatically over the past five years.

“It has grown exponentially because of the things that have been happening,” she said. “People are aware of what’s going on…no one is immune to having a cyber incident.”

Lamb said many multi-national companies have had cyber insurance policies as long as they’ve been around, but middle-market companies are just starting to pick up on the trend now.

Are there limits to how much a policy may pay out for one attack alone?

This will vary from policy to policy, but most of the time, yes.

Rudo said companies seeking out cyber insurance policies will shop around between companies looking for which insurer can offer them a larger “policy aggregate,” meaning the total amount the policy will cover.

Another option could be to take out a policy covering a certain number of records that could be stolen in an attack.

“There are some policies that have a limit for how much they’ll spend, but they’ll have a number of records,” she said. “Some policies will say they’ll give ‘X’ million for your data breach, and another may say they’ll cover ‘X’ number of records. These policies don’t tabulate the amount, just the number of records taken.”

What happens after you’re attacked?

Bad news — you’ve been attacked and are now infected with ransomware. Good news, you purchased a cyber insurance policy.

This varies from policy to policy, but some insurance companies will even go as far to provide boots-on-the-ground incident response and forensic assistance to help you recover your data and restore operations as quickly as possible.

Here’s why that makes sense for the insurer: If they can help you recover your data, the damages realized will not be as severe and thus reducing the monetary amount of claim and the restoration of activity to the victim as quickly as possible.

In some cases, the insurer will act as an intermediary between the attacker and the victim to help pay the ransom if that’s the route the victim wants to take.

“If a customer chooses to pay the ransomware, the insurance company will pay it, and the insurance company will sometimes facilitate [the payment],” Rudo said. “They can access a vendor to help with the ransomware payment. An insurance company will also respect the wish of the client if they choose not to pay the ransom.”

For example, an insurance company can even assist the victim in converting traditional currency into cryptocurrency, which the attacker may request as payment.

To hear Talos’ take on whether to pay the ransom in these kinds of attacks, you can check out our roundtable here.

Once the insured has completely recovered from an attack, the insurer will usually re-evaluate the policy and premium. The insurance company will look at things like if the initial attack vector was remediated, if the attacker was completely eradicated from the system and what new protections may be in place post-infection.

What is the timeframe for which the policy will cover an attack? For example, what would happen if an attacker had been in a victim’s system for a year, but the insured only took out a policy six months ago?

These policies pay out on discovery. So, for example, if a retailer had a card-skimming malware sitting on their system since January, but the company only took out a policy in October, the attack would still be covered if they discovered the breach in November of that same year.

“These policies are on a discovery basis,” Rudo said. “The policy begins when the buyer has discovered the loss. The only way there might be an exclusion is if there’s a retroactive date [on the policy].”

What is Cisco’s role in all of this?

Last year, Cisco, Aon, Apple and insurance company Allianz collaborated to launch the industry’s first cyber risk management solution.

The solution combines cyber resilience evaluation services from Aon, technology from Cisco and Apple, and options for enhanced cyber insurance coverage from Allianz. “Enhancements” to the traditional insurance policy that this program offers, may include severance pay for CISO’s in the event of a termination after a breach, special support agreements if the insured uses a certain percentage of Apple products and a shorter waiting time for coverage to kick in, according to Lamb.

Organizations using Cisco Ransomware Defense are eligible for such enhancements from Allianz.

Other considerations

Rudo said intellectual property is generally not covered by security policies because it is too difficult to quantify.

There are other liability policies that may be available to cover attacks that cause harm to a third party. For example, if an internet-of-things device was hacked in a way that it malfunctioned and injured a user, a cyber insurance policy would generally not cover that, but a separate liability policy would.

Many insurance companies will have “cyber security panels” that step in during some attacks to aid and provide advice to the victim. Lamb said Cisco is currently part of a few of these types of panels, and is looking to join more.

Go to Source Author: What you — and your company — should know about cyber insurance Original Post from Talos Security Author: By Jon Munshaw and Joe Marshall. It’s no longer a question of “if” any given company or organization is going to hit with a cyber attack — it’s when.

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