Digital safety alarms – Exploring the understandings of the cybersecurity practice in Norwegian municipalities

Abstract

In this paper we describe initial results from a qualitative study on municipal approaches to cybersecurity in welfare technology or medical IoT. The paper is based on interviews with stakeholders from municipal IT and health services where digital safety alarms are used as a case to study how stakeholders with differing perspectives communicate and cooperate to secure these solutions. We identify three key issues related to the factors that motivate the municipalities to perform cybersecurity work and how different perspectives between IT and healthcare affect this, and discuss these findings utilizing protection motivation theory. We further discuss the need for shared understanding of cybersecurity and risk between health and IT as well as how municipalities are approaching to bridge this gap