A Structured Approach for Internalizing Externalities Caused by IT Security Mechanisms

Abstract

Organizations relying on Information Technology for their business processes have to employ various Security Mechanisms (Authentication, Authorization, Hashing, Encryption etc) to achieve their organizational security objectives of data confidentiality, integrity and availability. These security mechanisms except from their intended role of increased security level for this organization may also affect other systems outside the organization in a positive or negative manner called externalities. Externalities emerge in several ways i. e. direct cost, direct benefit, indirect cost and indirect benefit. Organizations barely consider positive externalities although they can be beneficial and the negative externalities that could create vulnerabilities are simply ignored. In this paper, we will present an infrastructure to streamline information security externalities that appear dynamically for an organization.