Crisis
- 'Crisis' is also the name of a British comic published from 1988 to 1991 — see Crisis (comic) — and an all-women band — see Crisis (band) — and a 1946 film directed by Ingmar Bergman — see Crisis (film)
'Crisis' is a term meaning 'a testing time' or 'emergency event'. It is a concept in economics (discussed elsewhere) and in international relations, discussed below.
Crises in international relations
For information about crises as a field of study in international relations, see crisis management and international crisis. In this context, a crisis can be loosely defined as a situation where there is a perception of threat, heightened anxiety, expectation of possible violence and the belief that any actions will have far-reaching consequences (Lebow, 7-10).
Crisis in terms of Information Security
In InfoSec Crisis is the present tense of a disaster. An uncontrolled disaster or a combination of mismanaged disasters could lead to a crisis. The magnitude of crisis could be bigger than a disaster in terms of loss expectancy. A crisis usually happens because of accumulated unattended/unresolved disasters/issue(s). It is always the goal of InfoSec to contain the disaster and never give it a chance to become a crisis. When a disaster becomes a crisis it usually out of control in some form or proportion. Every Crisis is a disaster, on the same token a Disaster need not be a crisis, because it could be controlled way before it becomes crisis.
Time is another factor that differentiates between crisis and disaster. Crisis usually has a longer lifespan as compared to Disaster because the birth of Crisis arises is from one or more unattended or uncontrolled or mismanaged Disasters. One factor might trigger a disaster (?an emergency event?), where as a crisis usually needs one or more factor(s) that were either mismanaged, unattended or unresolved in the initial stages as disasters and as a result those disaster(s) converges to form a crisis, hence the term ? economic crises
