The Failures of Cybersecuritization

• In Event: Becoming “Data-Driven”: Burgeoning Data Cultures and Liminality in Civil Service - I

Abstract

Cybersecurity – undergirded by concepts, vocabulary, and approaches stemming from engineering disciplines and intelligence communities – produces a particular form of knowledge surrounding complex sociotechnical systems. These knowledges serve to make visible particular forms of (largely technical) forms of risk, while simultaneously constituting relationships between security workers and “the users” within organizations. Extending the work of previous STS scholars on cybersecurity (Hansen & Nissenbaum, 2009; Hart, Jin, & Feenberg, 2014; Nissenbaum, 2005) – largely mobilizing securitization theory (Buzan, Wæver, & Wilde, 1998) to frame national cybersecurity discourses - I examine the work of securitizing concepts within the organizational context. Broadly, I argue that the securitizing discourses of cybersecurity set the conditions for a variety of contemporary failures in cybersecurity, notably the massive online misinformation campaign by the Russian government in the leadup to the 2016 US election. Finally, I outline what appears to be a social turn in the field of cybersecurity, and provide potential intervention strategies for STS scholars.

Buzan, B., Wæver, O., & Wilde, J. de. (1998). Security: A New Framework for Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Hansen, L., & Nissenbaum, H. (2009). Digital disaster, cyber security, and the copenhagen school. International Studies Quarterly, 53(4), 1155–1175. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2009.00572.x

Hart, C., Jin, D. Y., & Feenberg, A. (2014). The Insecurity of Innovation: A Critical Analysis of Cybersecurity in the United States. International Journal of Communication, 8(0), 19.

Nissenbaum, H. (2005). Where Computer Security Meets National Security. Ethics and Information Technology, 7(2), 61–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-005-4582-3

Author

• Nathan Fisk, University of South Florida