Russia’s distribution of the NotPetya ransomware in the summer of 2017 was an ‘act of war

Russia’s distribution of the NotPetya ransomware in the summer of 2017 was an ‘act of war,’ Zurich American Insurance says in its defense against a $100 million damage claim by Mondelez. At Mondelez, NotPetya triggered shutdowns of 1,700 servers ad 24,000 laptops, creating chaos at factories and halting production, according to an Illinois lawsuit, cited by Toolboxtech news site. Mondelez filed a $100 million claim with Zurich for losses under a clause in its policy covering “physical loss or damage to electronic data, programs or software” caused by “the malicious introduction of a machine code or instruction.” Zurich bases its rejection an exclusion clause against losses caused by “hostile or warlike action in time of peace or war by any government or sovereign power.”