Publication Type
Presentation
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
2012
Abstract
Cybersecurity is a national priority in this big data era. Because of the lack of incentives and the existence of negative externality, companies often underinvest in addressing security risks and accidents, despite government and industry recommendations. In the present article, we propose a method that utilizes reputation through information disclosure to motivate companies to behave pro-socially, improving their Internet security. Using outbound spam as a proxy for Internet security, we conducted a quasiexperimental field study for eight countries through SpamRankings.net. This outgoingspam-based study shows that information disclosure on outgoing spam can help reduce outgoing spam, approximately by 16 percent. This finding suggests that information disclosure can be leveraged to encourage companies to reduce security threats. It also provides support for public policies that require mandatory reporting from organizations and offers implications for evaluating and executing such policies.
Keywords
Security, public policy, filed study, quasi-experiment, reputation, incentive
Discipline
Computer Sciences | E-Commerce
Research Areas
Information Systems and Management
Publication
International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), December 2012, Orlando, FL
City or Country
Orlando, FL
Citation
TANG, Qian; Linden, Leigh L.; Quarterman, John S.; and Whinston, Andrew.
Reputation as Public Policy for Internet Security: A Field Study. (2012). International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), December 2012, Orlando, FL.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/1844
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.