Quantifying and managing the risk of information security breaches participants in a supply chain

Technical integration between companies can result in an increased risk of information security breaches. This thesis proposes a methodology for quantifying information security risk to a supply chain participant. Given a system responsible for supply chain interaction and the vulnerabilities attributed to the system, the variables that determine the probability and severity of security incidents were used to create a model to quantify the risk within three hypothetical information systems. The probability of an incident occurring was determined by rating the availability and ease of performing an exploit, the attractiveness of the target and an estimate of the frequency of the attack occurring Internet wide. In assigning a monetary value to the incident, the outcome from an attack was considered in terms of the direct impact on the business process and the potential impact on partnerships. A method for determining mitigation strategies was then proposed based on a given set of monetary constraints and the realization of corporate security policy.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Bellefeuille, Cynthia Lynn

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• George Kocur.

• Engineering Systems Division.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33313

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33313