Cybersecurity Challenges to American Local Governments
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2017-06-12
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Donald Norris, et.al, Cybersecurity Challenges to American Local Governments, Proceedings of 17th European Conference on Digital Government, 2017, https://ebiquity.umbc.edu/paper/html/id/811/Cybersecurity-Challenges-to-American-Local-Governments
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Abstract
In this paper we examine data from the first ever nationwide survey of cybersecurity among American local
governments. We are particularly interested in understanding the threats to local government cybersecurity, their level of
preparedness to address the threats, the barriers these governments encounter when deploying cybersecurity, the
policies, tools and practices that they employ to improve cybersecurity and, finally, the extent of awareness of and support
for high levels of cybersecurity within their organizations. We found that local governments are under fairly constant
cyberattack and are periodically breached. They are not especially well prepared to prevent cyberattacks or to recover
when breached. The principal barriers to local cybersecurity are financial and organizations. Although a number of polices,
tools and practices to improve cybersecurity, few local governments are making wide use of them. Last, local governments
suffer from too little awareness of and support for cybersecurity within their organizations