The Business Case for Network Security

Advocacy, Governance, and ROI

Understand the total cost of ownership and return on investment for network security solutions

• Understand what motivates hackers and how to classify threats
• Learn how to recognize common vulnerabilities and common types of attacks
• Examine modern day security systems, devices, and mitigation techniques
• Integrate policies and personnel with security equipment to effectively lessen security risks
• Analyze the greater implications of security breaches facing corporations and executives today
• Understand the governance aspects of network security to help implement a climate of change throughout your organization
• Learn how to qualify your organization’s aversion to risk
• Quantify the hard costs of attacks versus the cost of security technology investment to determine ROI
• Learn the essential elements of security policy development and how to continually assess security needs and vulnerabilities

The Business Case for Network Security: Advocacy, Governance, and ROI addresses the needs of networking professionals and business executives who seek to assess their organization’s risks and objectively quantify both costs and cost savings related to network security technology investments. This book covers the latest topics in network attacks and security. It includes a detailed security-minded examination of return on investment (ROI) and associated financial methodologies that yield both objective and subjective data. The book also introduces and explores the concept of return on prevention (ROP) and discusses the greater implications currently facing corporations, including governance and the fundamental importance of security, for senior executives and the board.

Making technical issues accessible, this book presents an overview of security technologies that uses a holistic and objective model to quantify issues such as ROI, total cost of ownership (TCO), and risk tolerance. This book explores capital expenditures and fixed and variable costs, such as maintenance and upgrades, to determine a realistic TCO figure, which in turn is used as the foundation in calculating ROI. The importance of security policies addressing such issues as Internet usage, remote-access usage, and incident reporting is also discussed, acknowledging that the most comprehensive security equipment will not protect an organization if it is poorly configured, implemented, or used. Quick reference sheets and worksheets, included in the appendixes, provide technology reviews and allow financial modeling exercises to be performed easily.

An essential IT security-investing tool written from a business management perspective, The Business Case for Network Security: Advocacy, Governance, and ROI helps you determine the effective ROP for your business.

This volume is in the Network Business Series offered by Cisco Press®. Books in this series provide IT executives, decision makers, and networking professionals with pertinent information about today’s most important technologies and business strategies.