SUMMARY OF THE Ph.D. THESIS RESEARCH
The object of this Ph.D. thesis research is firstly to develop a general methodology in order to assess and manage network transport failure risk due to various factors, and at a later stage to quantify the impact of network failure in four key areas: human factors, environment, infrastructure and economic activity in the managing network company. The primary goal of this research is to develop a mathematical cost - benefit analysis model that aims at minimizing the impact of failures and optimize the allocation of resources in order to achieve a safe network function in a higher level.
Moreover, this research focuses on the problem of assessing and managing the risks of networks and aims to develop methods to optimize the relocation of available resources and means to reduce the risk of transport failure. The risk management involves to assess hazards and network vulnerability to them, as well as to design risk mitigation strategies and procedures to apply to the system, to an acceptable level without violating the financial restrictions. In particular, the proposed method analyzes in depth the levels of risk and benefits of countermeasures to the selected network. The benefits and costs are calculated allowing the decision makers to make changes through the available options for managing network security function. This is achieved by combining for each hazard parameter the calculated risk level and the impact of applying countermeasures to the network through a cost - benefit analysis model that will be developed through this thesis. As a result the effect of countermeasures will be compared with other effects and the allocation of risk level will be controlled.