Economic and Policy Frameworks for Cybersecurity Risks
Allan A. Friedman · 2011
ongress and the Obama administration have advanced dozens of proposals addressing cybersecurity. While many of these bills propose admirable policies, they often attempt to address a wide range of issues under a poorly matched set of frameworks. This paper offers three observations built around a framework of risk management to help focus the discussion. First, we caution against conflating different threats simply because they all involve information technology. Crime, espionage and international conflict are very different threats, and grouping them together can lead to poorly framed solutions. Second, we argue that looking at cybersecurity from the perspective of economics can offer important insight into identifying important policy opportunities. Finally, we suggest a series of governance frameworks that can be used in a complementary fashion to address many of the issues discussed.