Software Engineering Institute

This report describes the initial results of a research project to develop a transparent estimation method. This method leads to greater confidence in and improved ranges for estimates of potential cyber loss magnitude. The project team refined the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, Office of the Chief Economist (CISA OCE) Business Impact Analysis (BIA) method to support this estimation approach, including identifying factors and forming questions to ask stakeholders to elicit input for the loss magnitude estimation process. The project team also characterized the context for using factor tree analysis to produce an executable model in support of the refined BIA method since it can be applied to future cybersecurity assessments.