Assessing and Managing Security Risk in IT Systems

1: USING MODELS

INTRODUCTION: UNDERSTANDING, SELECTING, AND APPLYING MODELS

In the late 17th century, as the story goes, Sir Isaac Newton observed an apple fall from a tree. This mundane event caused him to ponder the essential elements of gravity. He struggled to understand the forces that pulled the apple from its position high in the tree toward the ground. Sir Isaac theorized that the two objects were attracted to each other and that the larger mass, the Earth, had the greater exertion causing the apple to fall toward the ground.

This revelation allowed him to extrapolate his thesis to the planets in orbit around our sun. Once he measured the elements involved, he developed mathematical models to explain the way the planets moved around ...