We study the effect of user incentives on software security in a network of individual users under costly patching and negative network security externalities. For proprietary software or freeware, we compare four alternative policies to manage network security: (i) Consumer self patching (where...

We study the question of whether a software vendor should allow users of unlicensed (pirated) copies of a software product to apply security patches. We present a joint model of network software security and software piracy and contrast two policies that a software vendor can enforce: (i)...