Security Regulations – a Necessity in Software Industry?

Experts Mull Whether It’s Time to Regulate the Software Industry?

by Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 02/23/2005 | 11:16 PM ]

In the light of further increasing virus activities and different kind of hacker attacks, there are once again debates over the so-called software regulations or security guidelines that are proposed to be something that the software industry misses. A number of experts say that regulations will only bring further increase in software security testing, others say that regulations are dangerous in the industry where the key driver is innovation, but a group of people still believe there is a need to tackle the security issue at the stage of software development.

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“Our industry is all about innovation, and my concern with regulation is it’s often the enemy of innovation,” said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America.

“The industry should come together and develop guidelines for best practices on developing software with minimal flaws, rather than imposing regulations,” said Rick White, chief executive of technology advocacy group TechNet.

“If we make it in their best interest to do this, then it will happen. You need to find a set of financial incentives. Regulations would increase the cost of not doing security, and that would increase security (testing),” thinks security expert and author Bruce Schneier.

“Regulation is neither good nor bad… but the industry should bear this in mind. After we have an incident, regulations will be much worse,” believes Dick Clarke, chairman of Good Harbor Consulting and former presidential special advisor on cyber security.

• CNET News.com: Time to Regulate the Software Industry?