Organising National Cybersecurity Centres

Abstract

The emerging trend in practises of organising national cybersecurity management via national cybersecurity centres unifies preventive and reactive cybersecurity measures and moves towards an all-hazard approach. These centres constitute some of the most modern ways of organising national cybersecurity management and originate from a holistic view of cybersecurity. Based on the empirical examples from the UK, the US, Finland, Germany and The Netherlands, the paper identifies basic motivational aspects behind the creation of national cybersecurity centres, as well as common features, such as strategy documents, organisational frameworks, tasks and responsibilities. Moreover, this paper seeks to identify if the national cybersecurity centres appear to be successful. The paper finds that the national cybersecurity centres are given increasing amounts of resources, tasks, responsibilities and/or freedom of action by their governments. This implies that practices of organising national cybersecurity management in national cybersecurity centres has indeed been successful, and that the examined countries aim to further develop and empower them. The paper concludes in recommendations for organising national cybersecurity centres, drawing on the examples of the studied countries.