Cybersecurity and Local Government

1 Why Local Government Cybersecurity?

This book begins with a simple question: why examine cybersecurity among America’s local (or grassroots) governments? What’s so special about these organizations that they deserve scrutiny? They are, after all, just organizations, and most, if not all organizations have certain similarities, especially the need to maintain effective levels of cybersecurity.

The need for cybersecurity is demonstrated every day and is a common staple in the popular media. And local governments do not differ much, if any, in the need for cybersecurity from organizations such as Microsoft, Target, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase, the White House, or many others. The similarity to which readers should be aware is that all of these organizations have been successfully hacked…as has a growing number of local governments.

1.1 Most Important Reason

Perhaps the most important reason that cybersecurity among local governments warrants our attention is that these governments are increasingly targets of cybercriminals and are under constant, or nearly constant, attack (Norris et al., 2018, 2019, 2020 ). Moreover, aside from relatively few studies, little is known about the specific vulnerabilities, exposures, practices, and shortcoming of local governments in this matter – yet every local government cybersecurity official who one of the authors (Norris) helped interview in 2013 agreed that their governments were under constant attack. Among local governments responding ...