Book excerpt: Strategic Security Management supports data driven security that is measurable, quantifiable and practical. Written for security professionals and other professionals responsible for making security decisions as well as for security management and criminal justice students, this text provides a fresh perspective on the risk assessment process. It also provides food for thought on protecting an organization’s assets, giving decision makers the foundation needed to climb the next step up the corporate ladder. Strategic Security Management fills a definitive need for guidelines on security best practices. The book also explores the process of in-depth security analysis for decision making, and provides the reader with the framework needed to apply security concepts to specific scenarios. Advanced threat, vulnerability, and risk assessment techniques are presented as the basis for security strategies. These concepts are related back to establishing effective security programs, including program implementation, management, and evaluation. The book also covers metric-based security resource allocation of countermeasures, including security procedures, personnel, and electronic measures. Strategic Security Management contains contributions by many renowned security experts, such as Nick Vellani, Karl Langhorst, Brian Gouin, James Clark, Norman Bates, and Charles Sennewald. Provides clear direction on how to meet new business demands on the security professional Guides the security professional in using hard data to drive a security strategy, and follows through with the means to measure success of the program Covers threat assessment, vulnerability assessment, and risk assessment - and highlights the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of each