Scenario-Driven Assessment of Cyber Risk Perception at the Security Executive Level
Simon E. Parkin, Kristen Kuhn, Siraj Ahmed Shaikh · Pure (Coventry University) · 2021
The motivation for corporate leadership to engage with cyber risks is increasingly clear. Stories can be seen of cyber incidents which have crippled large-scale businesses, potentially for extended periods of time and at significant cost. Our contribution here explores a much under-researched area — perceptions of cybersecurity and cyber risk at the highest levels of an organisation — with the aim of developing a structured, scenario-driven and repeatable exercise for executive decisionmakers. We attempt to understand why cyber risk perception is an important concept but equally a challenging one to grasp. We address this by demonstrating an approach to risk articulation, in terms of systematically constructed scenarios, and assess whether this resonates with decision-makers. As part of this, we also attempt to assess cyber-risk decision-makers for their perception of wider business risks and stakeholders.