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To describe and analyze the implications of the new Measures (the “Measures”) for Cybersecurity Review jointly promulgated on April 27, 2020 by twelve Chinese government departments led by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC).

Defines the scope of the Measures, explains the functions and obligations of critical information infrastructure operators (each, a CIIO), outlines the self-assessment and cybersecurity review process and discusses the implications of the Measures for foreign companies doing business in China.

The Measures impose an obligation on CII operators to apply for a cybersecurity review when they intend to procure network products and services that present or may present a national security concern. Such review will focus not only on national security and data leakage concerns, but also on supply-chain security concerns. The cybersecurity review will likely further the decoupling between China and the US.

While the Measures are not formally intended to discriminate against foreign products and services, the promulgation of the Measures will have a significant impact on foreign companies that supply network products or services to CII operators in China.

Practical guidance from lawyers with extensive experience in advising Chinese, US, European and other companies on laws and regulations related to competition, cross-border investments, joint ventures, strategic alliances and international trade matters.

The contribution of this study aims to twofold: First, it provides an overview of the current state of research on cyberattacks on Chinese supply chains (SCs). Second, it offers a look at the Chinese Government’s approach to fighting cyberattacks on Chinese SCs and its calls for global governance.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted on Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, in Social Sciences Citation Index journals, Scopus and Google Scholar, published between 2010–2021. A systematic review of practitioner literature was also conducted.

Chinese SCs have become a matter of national security, especially in the era of cyber warfare. The risks to SC have been outlined. Cybersecurity regulations are increasing as China aims to build a robust environment for cyberspace development. Using the Technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework, the results show that the top five factors influencing the adoption process in firms are as follows: relative advantage and technological readiness (Technology context); top management support and firm size (Organization context) and government policy and regulations (Environment context).

This review focuses on cyberattacks on Chinese SCs and great care was taken when selecting search terms. However, the author acknowledges that the choice of databases/terms may have excluded a few articles on cyberattacks from this review.

This review provides managerial insights for SC practitioners into how cyberattacks have the potential to disrupt the global SC network.

Past researchers proposed a taxonomic approach to evaluate progress with SC integration into Industry 4.0; in contrast, this study is one of the first steps toward an enhanced understanding of cyberattacks on Chinese SCs and their contribution to the global SC network using the TOE framework.

This paper aims to explore the factors affecting cybersecurity implementation in organizations in various countries and develop a cybersecurity framework to improve cybersecurity practices within organizations for cybersecurity risk management through a systematic literature review (SLR) approach.

This SLR adhered to RepOrting Standards for Systematics Evidence Syntheses (ROSES) publication standards and used various research approaches. The study’s article selection process involved using Scopus, one of the most important scientific databases, to review articles published between 2014 and 2023.

This review identified the four main themes: individual factors, organizational factors, technological factors and governmental role. In addition, nine subthemes that relate to these primary topics were established.

This research sheds light on the multifaceted nature of cybersecurity by exploring factors influencing implementation and developing an improvement framework, offering valuable insights for researchers to advance theoretical developments, assisting industry practitioners in tailoring cybersecurity strategies to their needs and providing policymakers with a basis for creating more effective cybersecurity regulations and standards.

This purpose of this paper is to provide insight through analysis of the data collected from a pilot study, into the decision-making process used by organizations in cybersecurity investments. Leveraging the review of literature, this paper aims to explore the strategic decisions made by organizations when implementing cybersecurity controls, and identifies economic models and theories from the economics of information security, and information security investment decision-making process. Using a survey study method, this paper explores the feasibility for development of a strategic decision-making framework that may be used when evaluating and implementing cybersecurity measures.

A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the ways in which decisions are made as it relates to cybersecurity spending. The purpose of the pilot study was to determine the feasibility for developing a strategic framework to minimize cybersecurity risks. Phase 1 – Interview Study: The qualitative approach focused on seven participants who provided input to refine the survey study questionnaire. Phase 2 – Survey Study: The qualitative approach focused on information gathered through an online descriptive survey study using a five-point Likert scale.

The literature review identified that there is limited research in the area of information security decision making. One paper was identified within this area, focusing on the research completed by Dor and Elovici [22]. This exploratory research demonstrates that although organizations have actively implemented cybersecurity frameworks, there is a need to enhance the decision-making process to reduce the number and type of breaches, along with strengthening the cybersecurity framework to facilitate a preventative approach.

The partnership research design could be expanded to facilitate quantitative and qualitative techniques in parallel with equal weight, leveraging qualitative techniques, an interview study, case study and grounded theory. In-depth data collection and analysis can be completed to facilitate a broader data collection which will provide a representative sample and achieve saturation to ensure that adequate and quality data are collected to support the study. Quantitative analysis through statistical techniques (i.e. regression analysis) taking into account, the effectiveness of cybersecurity frameworks, and the effectiveness of decisions made by stakeholders on implementing cybersecurity measures.

This exploratory research demonstrates that organizations have actively implemented cybersecurity measure; however, there is a need to reduce the number and type of breaches, along with strengthening the cybersecurity framework to facilitate a preventative approach. In addition, factors that are used by an organization when investing in cybersecurity controls are heavily focused on compliance with government and industry regulations along with opportunity cost. Lastly, the decision-making process used when evaluating, implementing and investing in cybersecurity controls is weighted towards the technology organization and, therefore, may be biased based on competing priorities.

The outcome of this study provides greater insight into how an organization makes decisions when implementing cybersecurity controls. This exploratory research shows that most organizations are diligently implementing security measures to effectively monitor and detect cyber security attacks. The pilot study revealed that the importance given to the decisions made by the CIO and Head of the Business Line have similar priorities with regard to funding the investment cost, implementing information security measures and reviewing the risk appetite statement. This parallel decision-making process may potentially have an adverse impact on the decision to fund cybersecurity measures, especially in circumstances where the viewpoints are vastly different .

Cybersecurity spend is discussed across the literature, and various approaches, methodologies and models are used. The aim of this paper is to explore the strategic decision-making approach that is used by organizations when evaluating and implementing cybersecurity measures. Using a survey study method, this paper explores the feasibility for development of a strategic decision-making framework that may be used when evaluating and implementing cybersecurity measures.

The human factor is the most important defense asset against cyberattacks. To ensure that the human factor stays strong, a cybersecurity culture must be established and cultivated in a company to guide the attitudes and behaviors of employees. Many cybersecurity culture frameworks exist; however, their practical application is difficult. This paper aims to demonstrate how an established framework can be applied to determine and improve the cybersecurity culture of a company.

Two surveys were conducted within eight months in the internal IT department of a global software company to analyze the cybersecurity culture and the applied improvement measures. Both surveys comprised the same 23 questions to measure cybersecurity culture according to six dimensions: cybersecurity accountability, cybersecurity commitment, cybersecurity necessity and importance, cybersecurity policy effectiveness, information usage perception and management buy-in.

Results demonstrate that cybersecurity culture maturity can be determined and improved if accurate measures are derived from the results of the survey. The first survey showed potential for improving the dimensions of cybersecurity accountability, cybersecurity commitment and cybersecurity policy effectiveness, while the second survey proved that these dimensions have been improved.

This paper proves that practical application of cybersecurity culture frameworks is possible if they are appropriately tailored to a given organization. In this regard, scientific research and practical application combine to offer real value to researchers and cybersecurity executives.

The impact of stress on personal and work-related outcomes has been studied in the information systems (IS) literature across several professions. However, the cybersecurity profession has received little attention despite numerous reports suggesting stress is a leading cause of various adverse professional outcomes. Cybersecurity professionals work in a constantly changing adversarial threat landscape, are focused on enforcement rather than compliance, and are required to adhere to ever-changing industry mandates – a work environment that is stressful and has been likened to a war zone. Hence, this literature review aims to reveal gaps and trends in the current extant general workplace and IS-specific stress literature and illuminate potentially fruitful paths for future research focused on stress among cybersecurity professionals.

Using the systematic literature review process (Okoli and Schabram, 2010), the authors examined the current IS research that studies stress in organizations. A disciplinary corpus was generated from IS journals and conferences encompassing 30 years. The authors analyzed 293 articles from 21 journals and six conferences to retain 77 articles and four conference proceedings for literature review.

The findings reveal four key research opportunities. First, the demands experienced by cybersecurity professionals are distinct from the demands experienced by regular information technology (IT) professionals. Second, it is crucial to identify the appraisal process that cybersecurity professionals follow in assessing security demands. Third, there are many stress responses from cybersecurity professionals, not just negative responses. Fourth, future research should focus on stress-related outcomes such as employee productivity, job satisfaction, job turnover, etc., and not only security compliance among cybersecurity professionals.

This study is the first to provide a systematic synthesis of the IS stress literature to reveal gaps, trends and opportunities for future research focused on stress among cybersecurity professionals. The study presents several novel trends and research opportunities. It contends that the demands experienced by cybersecurity professionals are distinct from those experienced by regular IT professionals and scholars should seek to identify the key characteristics of these demands that influence their appraisal process. Also, there are many stress responses, not just negative responses, deserving increased attention and future research should focus on unexplored stress-related outcomes for cybersecurity professionals.

The purpose of the study is to identify cybersecurity threats that hinder the adoption of digital banking and provide sustainable strategies to combat cybersecurity risks in the banking industry.

Systematic literature review guidelines were used to conduct a quantitative synthesis of empirical evidence regarding the impact of cybersecurity threats and risks on the adoption of digital banking.

A total of 84 studies were initially examined, and after applying the selection and eligibility criteria for this systematic review, 58 studies were included. These selected articles consistently identified identity theft, malware attacks, phishing and vishing as significant cybersecurity threats that hinder the adoption of digital banking.

With the country’s banking sector being new in this area, this study contributes to the scant literature on cyber security, which is mostly in need due to the myriad breaches that the industry has already suffered thus far.

The purpose of this paper is to scope the field of child-related online harms and to produce a resource pack to communicate all the different dimensions of this domain to teachers and carers.

With children increasingly operating as independent agents online, their teachers and carers need to understand the risks of their new playground and the range of risk management strategies they can deploy. Carers and teachers play a prominent role in applying the three M’s: mentoring the child, mitigating harms using a variety of technologies (where possible) and monitoring the child’s online activities to ensure their cybersecurity and cybersafety. In this space, the core concepts of “cybersafety” and “cybersecurity” are substantively different and this should be acknowledged for the full range of counter-measures to be appreciated. Evidence of core concept conflation emerged, confirming the need for a resource pack to improve comprehension. A carefully crafted resource pack was developed to convey knowledge of risky behaviors for three age groups and mapped to the appropriate “three M’s” to be used as counter-measures.

The investigation revealed key concept conflation, and then identified a wide range of harms and countermeasures. The resource pack brings clarity to this domain for all stakeholders.

The number of people who were involved in the empirical investigation was limited to those living in Scotland and Nigeria, but it is unlikely that the situation is different elsewhere because the internet is global and children’s risky behaviors are likely to be similar across the globe.

Others have investigated this domain, but no one, to the authors’ knowledge, has come up with the “Three M’s” formulation and a visualization-based resource pack that can inform educators and carers in terms of actions they can take to address the harms.

Users’ mistakes due to poor cybersecurity skills result in up to 95 per cent of cyber threats to organizations. Threats to organizational information systems continue to result in substantial financial and intellectual property losses. This paper aims to design, develop and empirically test a set of scenarios-based hands-on tasks to measure the cybersecurity skills of non-information technology (IT) professionals.

This study was classified as developmental in nature and used a sequential qualitative and quantitative method to validate the reliability of the Cybersecurity Skills Index (CSI) as a prototype-benchmarking tool. Next, the prototype was used to empirically test the demonstrated observable hands-on skills level of 173 non-IT professionals.

The importance of skills and hands-on assessment appears applicable to cybersecurity skills of non-IT professionals. Therefore, by using an expert-validated set of cybersecurity skills and scenario-driven tasks, this study established and validated a set of hands-on tasks that measure observable cybersecurity skills of non-IT professionals without bias or the high-stakes risk to IT.

Data collection was limited to the southeastern USA and while the sample size of 173 non-IT professionals is valid, further studies are required to increase validation of the results and generalizability.

The validated and reliable CSI operationalized as a tool that measures the cybersecurity skills of non-IT professionals. This benchmarking tool could assist organizations with mitigating threats due to vulnerabilities and breaches caused by employees due to poor cybersecurity skills.