Cybersecurity and Local Government

4 What the Literature Says About Local Government Cybersecurity

4.1 Introduction

A common refrain heard about the scholarly literature on local government cybersecurity is that there is relatively little of it (Hatcher et al., 2020; Norris et al., 2019, 2020; Pries and Susskind, 2020). Only 14 peer-reviewed articles published in academic journals that were directly relevant to local government cybersecurity were found in an extensive review of the literature conducted between 2000 and mid-2021 for this book. However, the number of professional works published by consulting firms, research centers and institutes, industry associations, private IT and cybersecurity firms, and others helps to make up for the lack of academic research on this topic.

This chapter first reviews the peer-reviewed research on local government cybersecurity. In light of the small number of scholarly articles on this subject, the search was specifically limited to research-based articles. Then, it presents an overview of a sampling of the literature from the profession on cybersecurity among local governments or that is otherwise relevant to local governments. Taken together, these works are valuable resources to local government officials who should not only be aware of them but actually review them periodically (or subscribe to or monitor them) in order to maintain an up-to-date understanding of cybersecurity threats and trends, particularly those facing the public sector.

4.2 Peer-reviewed Research ...