Tempering professional paranoia

It goes with the territory: professionals working in information risk and related areas are, of course, highly aware of risks within our specialism. It's what we do. 

Furthermore, many of us would admit to being naturally risk-averse: people outside the profession seem to take chances that we would prefer to avoid or shy away from, whether through plain ignorance or failure to appreciate the risks.  

Risk-aversion is a personal characteristic or bias that varies from mild caution and pessimism up to extreme, debilitating paranoia. It doesn't necessarily mean that we are timid, scared or weak, rather that we tend to place more emphasis on the possibility of problems or incidents compared to non-risk-averse people.    


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