Philosophy of Cybersecurity

Chapter 2 Cyber threats and the necessary clarifications

DOI: 10.1201/9781003408260-2

2.1 Risk

A key consideration when thinking about cybersecurity is risk. It is often said that there is a risk involved in an action. In the case of cybersecurity, risk can relate to many areas and issues. It may be a risk of business continuity loss, data leakage or, more generally, of some unwanted events. Risk is a phenomenon that is related to the likelihood of an event which has consequences.

There are many methods of risk assessment and they are often used in a specialized manner. In a standard case, we can use a formula in which risk is a function of the impact and probability (likelihood):

$$\mathit{\text{risk}}=\mathit{\text{impact}}+\mathit{\text{likelihood of occurrence}}.$$

Risk is a function of ...