Insightfully written about assessing (security) risks

I too seldom push for work by others, but today it is easy. I had this summer the pleasure of reading Terje Avens article “On the allegations that small risks are treated out of proportion to their importance” in Reliability Engineering & System Safety (Volume 140, August 2015). I the article Aven take his starting point from two risk examples, one introduced by Kahneman in “Thinking fast and slow” and one by Joakim Hammerlin in the book “Terrorindustrien”, both examples deals with risks from terrorists. Aven’s point is that when assessing a terror risk there is no right answer. Therefore are terms like under or over estimation irrelevant (as well as objective risk). A terror risk cannot be compared to lotto or other well defined systems, because in such systems there is a right answer.

An insightful article.

This doesn’t mean that we should stop assessing terror risks, but we should understand the difference between types of risk management situations and also always include/assess uncertainties. But don't take my word for it, read Aven’s article instead:

Aven, T. (2015). On the allegations that small risks are treated out of proportion to their importance, Reliability Engineering & System Safety, Volume 140 (pp 116-121).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2015.04.001.