The Software Licensing Disease Infecting Our Nation's Cybersecurity

The article contends that Microsoft’s overwhelming share of government collaboration and communications technology, combined with restrictive licensing and bundling, has produced a software monoculture that increases national cybersecurity risk and has contributed to numerous breaches; it urges the government to treat competition policy and procurement reform as core cybersecurity remedies, recommending immediate action by the GSA and longer-term enforcement by the FTC and DOJ to reduce vendor lock-in and diversify government technology suppliers.