Ars Technica on Liabilities and Computer Security
Good article:
Halderman argued that secure software tends to come from companies that have a culture of taking security seriously. But it's hard to mandate, or even to measure, "security consciousness" from outside a company. A regulatory agency can force a company to go through the motions of beefing up its security, but it's not likely to be effective unless management's heart is in it.
This is a key advantage of using liability as the centerpiece of security policy. By making companies financially responsible for the actual harms caused by security failures, lawsuits give management a strong motivation to take security seriously without requiring the government to directly measure and penalize security problems. Sony allegedly laid off security personnel ahead of this year's attacks. Presumably it thought this would be a cost-saving move; a big class action lawsuit could ensure that other companies don't repeat that mistake in future.
I've been talking about liabilities for about a decade now. Here are essays I've written in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006.
Posted on July 27, 2011 at 6:44 AM • 46 Comments
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