van Eeten, Michel; Bauer, Johannes M. --- "Enhancing incentives for internet security" [2013] ELECD 534; in Brown, Ian (ed), "Research Handbook on Governance of the Internet" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013) 445

Book Title: Research Handbook on Governance of the Internet

Editor(s): Brown, Ian

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849805025

Section: Chapter 18

Section Title: Enhancing incentives for internet security

Author(s): van Eeten, Michel; Bauer, Johannes M.

Number of pages: 40

Abstract/Description:

The devices and software constituting the internet are maintained by numerous players with very different incentives to provide for security. Hardware and software vendors, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), application and service providers, various types of users, security service providers, as well as government and non-government actors involved in governing the internet, interact in a trans-national, multi-level system. This system is continuously attacked by players with increasingly malicious and criminal motives (OECD 2009; Hogben et al. 2011). The proliferation of new network architectures and services such as cloud computing, mobile internet, and social networks raises additional security concerns (e.g., Blumenthal 2011). Highly distributed with hierarchical elements, the internet is best described as a nested system with subsystems that are more closely connected than others. Security at the system level is an emergent property, influenced but not fully determined by security decisions of individual participants. Even at the level of individuals or organizations security is partially affected by decisions of other players. Enhancing the incentives for internet security requires a clear understanding of the factors that shape security decisions of the many players involved in the internet and of the forces that relentlessly seek to breach information security, often in pursuit of fraudulent and criminal purposes.