INCHAIN: a cyber insurance architecture with smart contracts and self-sovereign identity on top of blockchain

DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-023-00741-8 

ABSTRACT

Despite the rapid growth of the cyber insurance market in recent years, insurance companies in this area face several challenges, such as a lack of data, a shortage of automated tasks, increased fraudulent claims from legal policyholders, attackers masquerading as legal policyholders, and insurance companies becoming targets of cybersecurity attacks due to the abundance of data they store. On top of that, there is a lack of Know Your Customer procedures. To address these challenges, in this article, we present INCHAIN, an innovative architecture that utilizes Blockchain technology to provide data transparency and traceability. The backbone of the architecture is complemented by Smart Contracts, which automate cyber insurance processes, and Self-Sovereign Identity for robust identification. The effectiveness of INCHAIN ’s architecture is compared with the literature against the challenges the cyber insurance industry faces. In a nutshell, our approach presents a significant advancement in the field of cyber insurance, as it effectively combats the issue of fraudulent claims and ensures proper customer identification and authentication. Overall, this research demonstrates a novel and effective solution to the complex problem of managing cyber insurance, providing a solid foundation for future developments in the field.

AUTHORS

Aristeidis Farao · Georgios Paparis · Sakshyam Panda · Emmanouil Panaousis · Apostolis Zarras · Christos Xenakis