ABSTRACT The number of malicious hacking incidents in our increasingly IT-enabled world has been increasing over the years. Conventional wisdom focuses on negative impacts of these malicious hacker activities. We posit that malicious hacker activities also might lead to some unintended consequences, specifically related to altering of software market structure, and associated stakeholder consequences. In this study, we model the competition between two software platforms in the presence of malicious hackers who perform cyberattacks against one or both software platforms. We compare a benchmark case where malicious hackers are either absent, or if present do not target the software platforms, against a first scenario where only one software platform is targeted, and a second scenario where both software platforms are targeted. Interestingly, we find the presence of malicious hackers’ activities is not always detrimental to all software industry stakeholders. In general, the results suggest that the presence of malicious hackers is more likely to result in a competitive market, while their absence is more likely to result in a monopoly. Furthermore, we show that under certain market conditions, the unsecure software platform targeted by hackers potentially can drive its more secure competitor out of the market.

中文翻译：

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恶意黑客的网络攻击对软件市场竞争的影响

摘要 在我们日益以 IT 为基础的世界中，恶意黑客事件的数量多年来一直在增加。传统观点侧重于这些恶意黑客活动的负面影响。我们假设恶意黑客活动也可能导致一些意想不到的后果，特别是与软件市场结构的改变以及相关的利益相关者后果有关。在这项研究中，我们对两个软件平台之间的竞争进行建模，其中存在对一个或两个软件平台进行网络攻击的恶意黑客。我们将恶意黑客不存在或不针对软件平台的基准案例与仅针对一个软件平台的第一种情况和针对两个软件平台的第二种情况进行比较。有趣的是，我们发现恶意黑客活动的存在并不总是对所有软件行业利益相关者有害。总的来说，结果表明恶意黑客的存在更有可能导致市场竞争，而他们的缺席更有可能导致垄断。此外，我们表明，在某些市场条件下，黑客攻击的不安全软件平台可能会将其更安全的竞争对手赶出市场。