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Introduction

Security in software networks relies on a complex mixture of technology, law, and economics. The considerable press surrounding security issues, the spread of worms and viruses on the internet, the possible link between identity theft and terrorism, and the penetration of online financial databases, attests to the subject’s growing significance.

As the costs of software security breaches become more apparent, there has been a greater interest in developing and implementing solutions for different aspects of the problem. For example, the information technology community is prodigiously developing new fixes, ranging from gatekeeper protections to procedures for constructing more secure software. Increasingly,
the federal government is paying more attention to this issue, particularly in the realm of online terrorism. Additionally, there are numerous pending bills that would increase penalties for different kinds of cyber crime.

Robert W. Hahn is a resident scholar and director of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies. Anne Layne-Farrar is the director of LECG, LCC.

 The complete text of this paper is available here as an Adobe Acrobat PDF.