Improving Cyber-Security Through Insurance: The Vision, Markets, and Research Problems

[The talk is cancelled]

Speaker:        Dr. Ranjan Pal
                University of Southern California

Title:          "Improving Cyber-Security Through Insurance: The Vision,
                 Markets, and Research Problems"

Date:           Wednesday, 14 June 2017

Time:           4:00pm - 5:00pm

Venue:          Room 2463 (via lifts 25/26), HKUST


Abstract:

In recent years, security researchers have well established the fact that
technical security solutions alone will not result in a robust cyberspace
due to several issues jointly related to the economics and technology of
computer security. In this regard, some of them proposed cyber-insurance
to be a suitable risk management technique that has the potential to
jointly align with the various incentives of security vendors (e.g.,
Symantec, Microsoft, etc.), cyber-insurers (e.g., traditional insurance
agencies, security vendors, ISPs, cloud providers, etc.), regulatory
agencies (e.g., government), and network users (individuals and
organizations), in turn paving the way for robust cyber-security. This
talk will cover the journey of cyber-insurance over time in its relation
to improving cyber-security. More specifically, we will initially focus on
the conceptual beginning of cyber-insurance, its business logic (including
how it can improve cyber-security), the market space, and its commercial
success/failures. We will then talk about how the cyber-insurance market
has currently shaped up to a multi-billion dollar industry, thanks
primarily to multiple human/cognitive factors and pervasive technological
advancements. We will also talk about how the current legal and policy
space pose barriers to effectively handling cyber-insurance court cases.
Finally, we will explore multiple research directions from various
disciplines (primarily EE, CS, and IS fields) where each direction
significantly contributes to a grand vision of a more robust cyber-space
via cyber-insurance.


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Biography:

Ranjan Pal is a Research Scientist at the University of Southern
California (USC), affiliated with both the Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science departments, where he co-leads the Quantitative
Evaluation and Design Group (QED). He is also currently a visiting faculty
at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and Indian Institute of
Management, Calcutta. Ranjan's primary research interests lie in the
mathematical modeling, analysis, and design of cyber-security, privacy,
communication networks, and the Smart Grid, using tools from economics,
game theory, applied probability and statistics, algorithms, graph theory,
information theory, and mathematical optimization. He received his PhD in
Computer Science from USC in 2014, and was the recipient of the Provost
Fellowship throughout his PhD studies. During his PhD, Ranjan held
visiting scholar positions at the School of Engineering and Applied
Science, Princeton University, USA, and Deutsch Telekom Research
Laboratories (T-Labs), Germany. Prior to his Ph.D, Ranjan has held
research positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
University of California, National University of Singapore, Aalborg
University, Indian Institute of Technology, and Indian Institute of
Management. Apart, from being an applied mathematician, Ranjan also takes
a light interest in information technology policy. His PhD research on
cyber-insurance (the first ever Ph.D on cyber-insurance for
inter-networked systems) has appeared in the USC News, and generated press
interests from the MIT Technology Review. He has around 60 publications in
journals, conference, book chapters, and workshops of international
repute. Ranjan has also consulted on cyber-insurance for various
companies, and is a member of the IEEE, the ACM, the American Mathematical
Society (AMS), and the Game Theory Society.