Cybersecurity at the Grassroots

Homeland Security
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Homeland Security
Introduction
The American government has continued taking the security of its borders and its citizens with a lot of seriousness, ever since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on its soil. Homeland security department was even constituted to specifically serve this purpose. Ever since its founding however, there have been various criticisms and opinions on how to make it discharge its duties better. Various scholars have put forward ideas and suggestions of how to make homeland security and homeland defense more effective both at present and in the future. It would be imperative to have a look at one of the articles to thoroughly review its objectives and effectiveness to the purpose, and ascertain whether it can be an important source for the improvement of homeland security.
Purpose of the Article
The article, Cybersecurity at the grassroots: American local governments and the challenges of internet security, by Norris et al. (2018) discusses cybersecurity as a challenge to local governments. The United States (US) has numerous units of authority at the domestic level, including the county, townships, and municipal governments. Such departments have critical information systems (IT) imperative to support daily activities of security and defense. All these systems are connected via technological applications, which therefore places their running entirely on the efficiency and safety of the internet. Moreover, substantial funds are spent to run technological operations, and studies estimate the rising cost of such expenditures at an unprecedented rate. By 2019, it was estimated that resources invested in IT security systems by the American local government amounted to 70 billion (Norris et al., 2018). The article aims to determine the extent of security problems, including cyberattacks, barriers to effective management, and actions to improve defense by local authorities.
Importance of the Article Subject
In the current digital and information technology age, data is the most valuable and hence most sought after thing in the world. It is the gold standard, and as a result, it needs a lot of protection to prevent it from landing in the wrong hands. Investigating the subject of cybersecurity or problems faced when ensuring defense is imperative to improving community safety when weak areas are established and corrected. According to Stevens (2018), cybersecurity is necessary to safeguard public information against theft or losses. Intellectual property, personal data, business details, and healthcare details are included in the security measures (Dawson et al., 2021). Hackers and fraudsters are always on the prowl, and when they land upon such information, they can do a lot of damage to the owners and even agencies. Therefore, inspecting the article's concepts poses relevance in informing how local government can be supported resource-wise and reflect accountability of measures taken to protect society. Norris et al. (2018) points out that data systems will continue to be attacked even with adequate funding or staffing, showing a clear need for continuous assessment and reinforcement of IT infrastructures.
Authors’ Methods and Comments
The authors employed research methods of focus groups on IT and cybersecurity personnel from the US. Such an approach has the benefit of measuring the outcomes and assessing impacts or outcomes in a wider context, not just airing views and opinions. Information conveyed by the article through a focused-group intervention is credible and reliable since insights on the topic are developed more directly. Examples of comments on the subject include the perception of humans as the major challenge to cybersecurity since they make mistakes and engage in misconduct, posing threats of attacks. Moreover, the authors integrate a literature review approach that consists of extensive studies of existing academic work to build an in-depth understanding of local government cybersecurity (Zwilling et al., 2022). In that light, the authors focused on content covering disciplines like social work and computer science. The relevance of embarking on reviews is to allow familiarity with existing knowledge in desired fields. Given that the article focuses on cybersecurity challenges and efforts made by the US local government, comprehensive research is relevant to build more information on research questions.
Findings and Presentation
From the article, the authors conducted a focused group asking study participants questions on cyberattacks, homeland defense, and security experience....