Threats can trigger incidents in information systems (IS) causing damage or
intangible material loss to assets. A good selection of safeguards is
critical for reducing risks caused by threats. This paper deals with the
selection of failure transmission, preventive and palliative safeguards that
minimize the maximum risk of an IS for a specified budget. We assume that all
the elements in the IS are valuated using a linguistic scale, which is
capable of accounting for imprecision and/or vagueness concerning the inputs.
Trapezoidal fuzzy numbers are associated with these linguistic terms, and
risk analysis and management is consequently based on trapezoidal fuzzy
number arithmetic. We model and solve the respective fuzzy optimization
problem by means of the simulated annealing metaheuristic and give an example
to illustrate the safeguard selection process.