Web Security, Privacy & Commerce, 2nd Edition

Risk Analysis and Best Practices

Security is most often viewed as a process that is designed to prevent something from happening. As a result, people often approach computer security by thinking about the risks that they face and then formulating strategies for minimizing or mitigating these risks. One traditional way to approach this problem is with the process of risk analysis , a technique that involves gauging the likelihood of each risk, evaluating the potential for damage that each risk entails, and addressing the risks in some kind of systematic order.

Risk analysis has a long and successful history in the fields of public safety and civil engineering. Consider the construction of a suspension bridge. It’s a relatively straightforward matter to determine how much stress cars, trucks, and weather on a bridge will place on the bridge’s cables. Knowing the anticipated stress, an engineer can compute the chance that the bridge will collapse over the course of its life given certain design and construction choices. Given the bridge’s width, length, height, anticipated traffic, and other factors, an engineer can compute the projected destruction to life, property, and commuting patterns that would result from the bridge’s failure. All of this information can be used to calculate cost-effective design decisions and a reasonable maintenance schedule for the bridge’s owners to follow.

Unfortunately, the application of risk analysis to the field of computer security has been less successful. ...