A Census of Swedish Government Administrative Authority Employee Communications on Cybersecurity during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cybersecurity is the backbone of a successful digitalization of society, and cyber situation awareness is an essential aspect of managing it. The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up an already ongoing digitalization of Swedish government agencies, but the cybersecurity maturity level varies across agencies. In this study, we conduct a census of Swedish government administrative authority communications on cybersecurity to employees at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The census shows that the employee communications in the beginning of the pandemic to a greater extent have focused on first-order risks, such as video meetings and telecommuting, rather than on second-order risks, such as invoice fraud or social engineering. We also find that almost two thirds of the administrative authorities have not yet implemented, but only initiated or documented, their cybersecurity policies.

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