Emerging Trends in ICT Security: Chapter 19. Optimum Countermeasure Portfolio Selection: A Knapsack Approach (Emerging Trends in Computer Science and Applied Computing)

Deploying an appropriate collection of information security countermeasures in an organization should result in high-level blocking power against existing threats. In this chapter, a new knapsack-based approach is proposed for finding out which subset of countermeasures is the best at preventing probable security attacks. In this regard, an effectiveness score is defined for each countermeasure based on its mitigation level against all threats. Organizations are always looking for more effective low-cost solutions, so another consideration is that the implementation cost of the selected countermeasure portfolio should not exceed the allocated budget. Following the knapsack idea, the implementation cost of each countermeasure and its effectiveness, defined as inputs and the best subset, are chosen with respect to budget limits. Our results are compared with similar research and recommend the same countermeasure portfolio.