Re: The Return on Investment of Good Security

["Adriel T. Desautels" <ad_lists () netragard com>]

Tony,
	While I understand and respect your point of view I disagree.  If you  
pay for quality security services you will probably avoid suffering  
the damages of a successful compromise.  If you avoid that compromise  
then you never need to suffer damages and lose money as a result.  I  
suppose thats not really savings, but it does prevent loss.

	If on the other hand you do not use a quality service provider then  
you do run the very high risk of suffering a compromise.  So then I'll  
ask, how much are your assets worth? What is the value of your  
network, its systems, your emails, your customer information, your  
source code, etc? Is it worth more than $20,000, is it worth more than  
$50,000.00?  If it is then why would you choose the bunk security  
service over the real one?

	So the question really is, are your assets worth protecting Tony? If  
you're interested I can prove my point about the differences in  
quality.  Have my team do a followup penetration test and allow us to  
reproduce the threat that you'll likely face in the real world. We'll  
probably get in,  thank god we're the good guys right? Too bad most of  
the bad guys are testing you better than most of the security  
providers though. ;]




        


On Jan 3, 2009, at 10:20 AM, tony_l_turner () yahoo com wrote:

> I've always felt that any attempts to calculate ROI for security  
> investments led to confusion. There really is no return on  
> investment, just mitigated or avoided risk. Its similar to buying  
> insurance (although that creates a certain amount of risk  
> transference) but either is a completely different scenario then  
> buying a server or a new DBMS that directly translates to increased  
> transaction volume or decreased contact times. ROI on security is a  
> misnomer. It is an attempt to justify security expenditures and  
> while some sort of model is needed to represent the impact for the  
> investment and the returns gained, ROI seems a poor choice.
> ------Original Message------
> From: Adriel T. Desautels
> Sender: listbounce () securityfocus com
> To: pen-test list
> Cc: security-basics () securityfocus com
> Sent: Jan 2, 2009 6:45 PM
> Subject: The Return on Investment of Good Security
>
> Latest blog entry for those who care. This one compares the Return on
> Investment of good security services to the Return on Investment of
> poor quality security services.  As usual comments and criticisms are
> welcome and appreciated.
>
> Direct link as requested:
>
> http://snosoft.blogspot.com/2009/01/cost-of-good-security-is-fraction-of.html
>
>
>         Adriel T. Desautels
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> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry



        Adriel T. Desautels
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