A Grassroots Cyber Security Program to Protect the Nation

Abstract

As governments increasingly move to automating various government functions and as the movement to implement e-government increases, an important element that must be considered is security. Numerous communities have learned what can go wrong if security is not addressed as numerous cyber incidents have been experienced. While dependence on cyber infrastructures increase, nations have increased their efforts to prepare for a national cyber incident. Unfortunately for communities, nations are overlooking the need for local governments to be prepared for incidents. This is not only true for incidents that might impact or target only a single community, but it also includes national incidents that will have an impact on every community. Even if an incident is being addressed by organizations at the national level, cities still need to function and if they are not prepared to respond to a cyber incident they may find that they are not able to properly meet the needs of their citizens while relying on the government at the national level to address the incident. This paper addresses a model that has been developed to help communities develop a viable and sustainable cyber security program. By doing so, this paper describes a model which can help secure a nation by working from the "bottom up" in a grass-roots initiative.