Societal Impacts of Cyber Security Assets of Project ECHO

Abstract

Solutions on both consumer and state levels have become increasingly vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks by e.g. malware, phishing, machine learning and artificial intelligence. As the adoption and integration of information technologies are increasing and solutions are developing, the need to invest in cyber-security is at an all-time high. Investment in cybersecurity is a chief priority within the European Union, and project ECHO is a one initiative that put emphasis on devising, elaborating, implementing and enhancing a series of technological solutions (assets) to counteract cyber-attacks. The research problem of this study is what societal impacts do the ECHO assets have as product, as knowledge use, and as benefits to society. The literature review includes theory and practice from academic papers, EU innovation project and professional reports, and some ECHO project workflows. Relevant academic theoretical approaches that provide a basis for this task are: E-skills and training, Organisational Learning (OL), Societal Impact (SI), Societal Impact Assessment (SIA). This is a qualitative pilot study that evaluates the usefulness of employing a Product/ Knowledge/ Benefit Societal Impact framework to assessment of societal impacts. Data collection involved qualitative participatory observation of a co-creative expert hackathon workshop. This pilot study shows that the methodology path, where societal impact of ICT and AI solutions (e.g. the ECHO assets) are examined as these three elements (product, knowledge use, societal benefit). This pilot study serves as a step to validate this path and design and select practical, rigorous and relevant quantitative methodology to further the understanding of both societal impact assessment of cyber, e-, and AI-based solutions and services. To incorporate societal impacts with cyber and e-skills this study recommends developing and refining actual key performance indicators (KPI) to provide a basis for rigorous and relevant qualitative and quantitative questionnaire based inquiry of cyber, e-, and AI-based solutions and services.