Information technology (IT) security, which is
concerned about protecting the confidentiality, integrity and
availability of information technology assets, inherently possesses
a significant amount of risk, some known and some unknown. IT
security risk management has gained considerable attention over
the past decade due to the collapsing of some large organisations
in the world. Previous investigative research in the field of IT
security have indicated that despite the efforts that organisations
employ to reduce IT security risks, the trend of IT security
attacks are still increasing. One of the contributing factors to
poor management of IT security risk is attributed to the fact that
IT security risk management is often left to the technical security
technologist who do not necessarily employ formal risk
management tools and reasoning. For this reason, organisations
find themselves in a position where they do not have the correct
approach to identify, assess and treat IT security risks.
Employing a formal risk based approach in managing IT security
risk assist in ensuring that risks that matter to an organisation
are accounted for and as a result, receive the correct level of
attention. Defining an approach of how IT security risk is
managed should be seen as a fundamental task, which is the basis
of this research. The objective of this paper is to propose an
approach for identifying, assessing and treating IT security risk
which incorporates a robust risk analysis and assessment process.
The risk analysis process aims to make use of a comprehensive IT
security risk universe which caters for the complex and dynamic
nature of IT security. The research will contribute to the field of
IT security by using a consolidated approach that utilises
coherent characteristics of the available qualitative risk
management frameworks to provide a stronger approach that
will enable organisations to treat IT security risk better.