John Farley
Managing Director — Cyber Liability Practice
John Farley leads Gallagher’s Cyber Liability practice, developing and executing insurance coverage across all lines in the U.S. He works closely with our teams around the world in our Global Cyber practice. John provides thought leadership on a variety of cyber risk management best practices and assists clients across all industries in navigating the dynamic cyber insurance markets as a means to cyber risk transfer while providing guidance on emerging regulatory risk, cyber attack techniques, cyber risk prevention and data breach cost mitigation strategies.
His responsibilities also include partnering with our production teams to assure our clients’ needs and concerns are appropriately addressed, developing products and leading webinars on cyber risk management, as well the continuing education and development of cyber knowledge within Gallagher.
John is an industry-recognized subject matter expert in cyber risk management. He is also a frequent guest speaker and a published author with a 27-year track record in the insurance industry. Part of Gallagher since 2019, John gained valuable experience at other insurance brokerages, including Marsh & McLennan, Wells Fargo Insurance Services and HUB International.
During his career, John has forged strategic relationships with cyber insurance underwriters, privacy attorneys, IT forensics investigators and law enforcement. His extensive experience earned him a seat on an advisory board for the U.S. Treasury.
John has served clients by facilitating cyber risk assessments to identify and remediate network vulnerabilities to portray clients in the most favorable light as they enter the insurance market. He has also written detailed incident response plans and coordinated tabletop exercises that included live hacking demonstrations. He was also the main source of cyber risk education for clients by leading cyber risk education training programs.
John has also been a lead data breach response resource for clients. He quarterbacked the response to over 400 cyber attacks involving social engineering schemes, ransomware infiltrations, denial of service attacks, vendor data breaches, employee negligence and rogue insiders. This experience drove John to recommend key changes to cyber insurance policy forms to broaden insurance coverage for clients in the face of ever-evolving and sophisticated cyber attacks.
In 2017, John published his book, Online and Under Attack, to provide guidance to C-suite executives on best practices to prevent, transfer and mitigate the effects of a cyber attack.