Benefits, risks and costs of security measures: A portfolio-oriented decision-support approach for political decision-making. Extended abstract

Typical security related decision problems require decision-makers to select a subset of available options that return a maximum benefit whilst satisfying specified requirements and limiting constraints. These requirements and limiting factors can include, for example, budget limit, previous decisions, existing agreements, threat perception or decision-maker's attitude to risk. From a policy-decision making standpoint, it is also very important to ensure that the stakeholders affected by a decision are not still exposed to an undesirable level of security risks after implementing a security measure. This optimisation problem becomes increasingly difficult to solve if more decision options are included and if uncertainty aspects are being considered. This extended abstract presents a model to support decision-making for security measures. The approach is based on the assessment of costs, benefits, risks as well as of societal criteria which are typically difficult to evaluate monetarily. In many fields of management and decision-making the selection of an optimal portfolio of decision options is of increasing significance. The extended abstract and the poster is based on the preliminary results of the ValueSec ('Mastering the Value Function of Security Measures') project, a research project in the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme.