Security Ontologies: Improving Quantitative Risk Analysis

— IT-security has become a much diversified field and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), in particular, do not have the financial ability to implement a holistic IT-security approach. We thus propose a security ontology, to provide a solid base for an applicable and holistic IT-security approach for SMEs, enabling low-cost risk management and threat analysis. Based on the taxonomy of computer security and dependability by Landwehr [1], a heavy-weight ontology can be used to organize and systematically structure knowledge on threats, safeguards, and assets. Using this ontology, each threat scenario can be simulated with a different protection profile as to evaluate the effectiveness and the cost/benefit ratio of individual safeguards.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: HICSS
• Authors: Andreas Ekelhart, Stefan Fenz, Markus D. Klemen, Edgar Weippl
• Keywords: Biometrics, HICSS 2007, Holistic It-security Approach, Medium Sized Enterprises, Security Ontology, System Sciences