An Investigation of Decision-Making and the Tradeoffs involving Computer Security Risk

Individual decision making in computer security risk plays a critical role in successful information security management. This paper describes a study that investigated how individuals make tradeoffs regarding computer security risk. The study asked subjects to make decisions on two hypothetical scenarios in which subjects were asked to choose between avoiding computer security risk and accepting a reward. We found that individual computer security risk perception, culture and security skills have an impact on their decisions regarding trading off computer security with rewards.