Is the responsibilization of the cyber security risk reasonable and judicious?

Cyber criminals appear to be plying their trade without much hindrance. Home computer users are particularly vulnerable to attack by an increasingly sophisticated and globally dispersed hacker group. The smartphone era has exacerbated the situation, offering hackers even more attack surfaces to exploit. It might not be entirely coincidental that cyber crime has mushroomed in parallel with governments pursuing a neoliberalist agenda. This agenda has a strong drive towards individualizing risk i.e. advising citizens how to take care of themselves, and then leaving them to face the consequences if they choose not to follow the advice. In effect, citizens are “responsibilized .” Whereas responsibilization is effective for some risks, the responsibilization of cyber security is, we believe, contributing to the global success of cyber attacks. There is, consequently, a case to be made for governments taking a more active role than the mere provision of advice, which is the case in many countries. We conclude with a concrete proposal for a risk regulation regime that would more effectively mitigate and ameliorate cyber risk

Cyber security responsibilization:an evaluation of the intervention approaches adopted by the Five Eyes countries and China

Governments can intervene to a greater or lesser extent in managing the risks their citizens face. They can adopt a maximal intervention approach (e.g. COVID-19) or a handsoff approach, effectively “responsibilizing” their citizens (e.g. unemployment). To manage the cyber risk, governments publish cyber-related policies. The question that we wanted to answer was: “What intervention stances do governments adopt in supporting individual citizens managing their personal cyber risk?” We pinpointed the cyber-related responsibilities that several governments espoused, applying a “responsibilization” analysis. We identified those that applied to citizens, and thereby revealed their cyber-related intervention stances. Our analysis revealed that most governments adopt a minimal cyber-related intervention stance in supporting their individual citizens. Given the increasing number of successful cyber attacks on individuals, it seems time for the consequences of this stance to be acknowledged and reconsidered. We argue that governments should support individual citizens more effectively in dealing with cyber threats

Grassroots adoption of cloud-based storage solutions

The introduction of innovative technologies by employees into their workplace has been a long-standing practice. This informal introduction of technology within an organization without the organizational support or sanction is defined as ‘‘grassroots diffusion.’’ While a plethora of research studies have focused on factors contributing to individuals’ technology adoption decisions, these studies have failed to understand the factors that contribute to technology adoption and continuance usage through the grassroots diffusion process. In understanding the factors that contribute to the grassroots diffusion process, we test a model by administering a survey to full-and part-time employees who use a cloud-based storage application for work-related tasks and who work for organizations that do not formally provide and require the use of the chosen application. The results suggest that source credibility, response cost, satisfaction, and perceived usefulness have significant influence on continuance usage intention of cloud-based applications adopted through the grassroots diffusion process