Although cybersecurity is a “team sport”, the state needs to play an even bigger role than the users.
For citizens who depend on various digital services, it is inconceivable that the state protects them only in one domain but not the ever-expanding digital one.Today, even small businesses and ordinary citizens tread delicately in the digital domain, fearful of scams, malware, and other threats that lurk online.
Typically, public goods are provided for in some ways by the government, while private goods are most efficiently provided for through the free market mechanism, where customers buy things from companies. In the digital world, this is not yet true. Companies and individuals are burdened with the full responsibility of protecting themselves from petty hackers to state sponsored attackers. Physical security is provided mostly by the state as a public good while digital security is not.
Singapore’s experience with scams and the public pressure for the state to “do more” is illustrative of these expectations. The public wants “clean” Internet, straight from the Internet Service Provider.As the cybersecurity marketplace is already overcrowded with private solutions, why is intervention necessary? Perhaps it is just that users are too stingy to pay for it?
Furthermore, reinforcing the idea that cybersecurity is a private good may lead to other perverse outcomes: “online security is only for the rich; the poor deserve to be breached”.
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