Week 10

One of the things we read about this week was the concept of basically cost-to-benefit analysis of risks and the mitigation techniques needed to reduce those risks. The example in the book I think was generally along the lines of “If a risk to an organization could potentially cost 10k, and the mitigation technique needed to mitigate it was greater than that, there’s little point in implementing the mitigation technique.”

I think this is the kind of statement that can only exist in a capitalist society. There was a movie a while ago that went over a similar concept about like a business risk management evaluator who’s job it was to determine if the cost of a vehicle recall from something like a defective airbag (mitigating factor) was worth the risk (human life). The concept was if there were like 100k vehicles affected, and each one costs 2k to fix, and covering the cost of a lawsuit from a wrongful death charge at 1M a piece (or something like that, I don’t remember the numbers) the company would always choose the cheaper number. Even if that meant more people would die (the morally incorrect decision).

This same sort of thing can apply to an organization that is tasked with protecting client information. If the cost of the mitigation technique is greater than the fines and reputational loss a company would face if an attacker would harvest and leak the information, they will go with the cheaper option.

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