Author: completebodyneeds

On July 1st, security researchers at Sysdig published something they had never documented before. A ransomware attack that ran from start to finish without a single human directing it, an AI agent alone at every stage. If you work in security, risk or insurance, the automation is the least interesting part of this story. Notice instead that the attack could never have paid out, even for a victim who did everything right. So let me tell you what happened, in plain terms. An AI agent broke into a company’s systems, worked its way to the central database, encrypted everything it…

The Trump administration is working to develop new safety requirements governing how autonomous vehicles behave on the road as the industry contends with a series of safety mishaps. Officials aim to finalize the new requirements before the end of President Donald Trump’s current term, Jonathan Morrison, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s top official, said in an interview. NHTSA initially plans to seek comment from the public and industry stakeholders with the goal of identifying “behavioral competencies” for autonomous vehicles, with tests to measure performance. The goal is to craft objective safety standards “so that a manufacturer who is producing…

The Shifting Landscape of Digital Risk: For years, many businesses have operated under the assumption that their general liability (GL) policy might offer a safety net for the physical consequences of a cyber event. However, since 2014 the ground beneath our feet has been inevitably shifting. The insurance market has been moving decisively to eliminate “silent cyber” coverage, and recent changes have largely completed this shift. The Past: A “Carve-Back” for Physical Harm Not long ago, the standard approach was to exclude liability for most data breaches from GL policies. However, insurers often “carved back” coverage for resulting bodily injury.…

From Michigan Avenue, Saline Township looks like any other farming community, with its corn and soybean fields, silos and grain elevators. Just down the road, though, cranes reach above towering fences at the site of a $16 billion project — one that has turned this town of 2,400 people into the latest U.S. flashpoint over AI data centers. Dubbed “The Barn” by its consortium of developers — Oracle ORCL.N, OpenAI, Related Digital, Blackstone BX.N and Walbridge — the Stargate data center is expected to stretch over 250 acres. Construction is moving ahead despite resistance from residents concerned about its impact…

IMA Financial Group has expanded its Global Risk & Benefits leadership team with the appointment of two national practice leaders, strengthening the firm’s ability to support multinational organizations seeking coordinated strategies to address risk, employee benefits and compliance across international operations. IMA hired Simone Hanraads as Global Risk Practice Leader for Property and Casualty and Dana Cook as Global Benefits Practice Leader. Together, they bring more than 30 years of combined experience leading insurance and employee benefits programs for organizations with operations worldwide. Hanraads is based in IMA’s Pasadena, California, office. Cook is based in the Kansas City market. Simone…

The North Carolina Supreme Court in 2024 famously bucked the trend on COVID-19 business-interruption coverage, finding that an insurer owed coverage to a restaurant that was forced to close during the pandemic. But that ruling is not enough to overturn a federal court decision in a similar case involving Golden Corral restaurants and Illinois Union Insurance Co., the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said this week. Unless the circumstances are truly extraordinary, a federal court rule that allows a higher court to set aside a judgment “cannot outweigh the fundamental principle of finality of judgments,” Appeals Court Judge Nicole…

Jonathan Korbecki was relaxing at home on the Thornapple River one rainy February night when the fire marshal knocked on his door, warning the nearby Labarge Dam may fail and send a wall of water his way. Hundreds of yards of trucked-in sand prevented disaster that 2018 night at the high-hazard dam, where a failure could have killed nearby residents, washed out a bridge and potentially triggered downstream dam breaches. But eight years later, federal records show lingering risks. Water seeps through the dam’s embankment, the spillway is too small to pass a major flood and the gates controlling water…

More than a dozen East Texas counties are working to create a groundwater conservation district that would prevent over-pumping water from the aquifer below their communities. On Tuesday, Gregg County Commissioners voted to approve a resolution adding the county to a growing number of East Texas communities interested in developing the Northeast Texas Groundwater Conservation District. This is among the first steps to establish the district, which will have to undergo legislative approval in 2027. Leaders in northeast Texas want to create a groundwater conservation district to protect East Texans from losing all their groundwater. This district would set guardrails…

A U.S. Department of Labor investigation concluded that a Houston utility construction company exposed employees to safety hazards after an excavation collapse hospitalized a worker. The department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration initiated an investigation into Blazey Construction Services LLC following the incident, which occurred while crews were installing sewer and water pipes for a residential development in Alvin, Texas. OSHA determined that the employer failed to adequately protect the excavation, provide a safe means of egress, and report the hospitalization within 24 hours as required by federal law. OSHA cited Blazey Construction Services for two repeat violations and one…

In an industrial park on the outskirts of Beijing, a humanoid arm picks up a bag of Lay’s potato chips and places it neatly along a row of snacks on a shelf. Nearby, a worker films himself grabbing cushions off a sofa and folding sheets on a bed, recording videos that will be used to develop brains for robots. China is deploying more humanoids than ever before, sending thousands to logistics hubs, battery factories and other industrial locations at a faster pace than the US. Buoyed by support from the government and a flood of investment, startups are getting their…