Contextualising the National Cyber Security Capacity in an Unstable Environment: A Spring Land Case Study

Abstract

Threats to global cyber security, including physical, personnel, and information, continue to evolve and spread across a hyper-connected world, irrespective of international borders, in both their elaboration and the scale of their impact. This cyber domain represents a constant challenge to national security, as its socio-technical components are both real and cognisant. The exacerbation of cyber-attacks undermines countries’ stability, its escalation produces a landscape of genuine global threat, and the magnitude of its expanding attack mechanisms creates a ‘tsunami effect’ on national cyber defenses. This paper reviews the current politically unstable state of Spring Land’s cyber security capacity, utilising Interactive Management (IM) approach. It reports the findings of an IM session conducted during a workshop involving a total of 26 participants from the Spring Land National Cyber Security Authority (NCSA), other government agencies. The workshop utilised different IM techniques, such as Idea Writing (IW), Nominal Group Technique (NGT), and Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM). Using trigger questions, based on the dimensions of the Cybersecurity Capacity Maturity Model for Nations (CCMM), a set of objectives was derived to contextualise and support identified the key initiatives for the development of national cyber security capacity in the country.