Risikoüber

Risikoüber is a concept in risk management describing deliberate, structured overexposure to risk to test resilience. It blends stress testing, red teaming, and scenario analysis to reveal vulnerabilities hidden under normal conditions. The term is a German neologism and is not part of standard risk management vocabulary, though it appears in some writings since the 2010s.

Definition: Risikoüber involves defining an acceptable level of risk overexposure and conducting simulations to observe how systems behave as risk rises beyond baseline mitigations. The aim is to map residual risk under extreme but plausible conditions and to strengthen controls before a tipping point is reached.

Process and applications: 1) establish baseline risk and risk appetite; 2) construct overexposure scenarios that stress interdependencies; 3) run simulations using stress testing, Monte Carlo methods, or Bayesian updating; 4) analyze tipping points, cascades, and failure modes; 5) update risk governance and controls accordingly.

Limitations: Risikoüber is resource-intensive and requires careful scenario selection and governance to avoid incentivizing excessive risk-taking or misinterpretation of results. Ethical considerations and data quality are important, and outcomes depend on model assumptions.

Relation to broader practice: seen as a complement to conventional risk assessment and resilience engineering, it emphasizes preemptive learning and adaptive controls rather than merely predicting likelihoods.

History and reception: the concept remains nascent; acceptance varies between industries. Critics warn that overexposure exercises can distort risk culture if not properly bounded.

See also: stress testing, red teaming, risk appetite, scenario analysis, resilience engineering.