Performance Modelling and Evaluation of Enterprise Information Security Technologies

Zeng, W; Koutny, M; van, Moorsel, A

doi:10.1109/CIT.2014.18

Performance Modelling and Evaluation of Enterprise Information Security Technologies

Lookup NU author(s): Wen Zeng, Professor Aad van Moorsel

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Abstract

By providing effective access control mechanisms, enterprise information security technologies have been proven successful in protecting the confidentiality of sensitive information in business organizations. However, such security mechanisms typically reduce the work productivity of the staff, by making them spend time working on non-project related tasks. Therefore, organizationshave to invest a signification amount of capital in theinformation security technologies, and thento continue incurring additional costs.In this study, we investigate the performance ofadministrators in an information help desk, and thenon-productive time (NPT) in an organization, resulting fromthe implementation ofinformation security technologies. An approximate analytical solution is discussed first,and the loss of staff member productivity is quantified using non-productive time. Stochastic Petri nets are then used to provide simulation results. The presented study can help information security managers to make investment decisions, and to take actions toward reducing the cost of information security technologies, so that a balance is kept between information security expense, resource drain and effectiveness of security technologies.