Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Combatting Culture for African Police Services

摘要

Police forces are responsible to investigate cybercrimes and to protect their own assets from cybersecurity attacks. The majority of police forces find it difficult to fulfil their responsibilities in this regard in the face of constrained funding, a lack of awareness and training amongst law enforcement staff, the growing number of cybercrime incidences, and outdated or insufficient technology and infrastructure. Even if police forces are able to install technical controls to counter cyber threats, their staff members' cyber behaviour may be a weak link in the cybersecurity chain and will probably not have sufficient training. The cultivation of a cybersecurity culture has been shown to be the best approach to address human behaviour in the cyber domain. There are several frameworks and other resources available for an organisation to cultivate a cybersecurity culture but the organisational culture in law enforcement agencies is different than that in other organisations. The cyber behaviour, cybercrime investigation skills, training and education of police force members require customised strategies and research. African police forces find it particularly difficult to deal with these challenges due to a lack of funding and a shortage of cybersecurity capability and capacity. This paper presents guidelines for African police forces to formulate strategies and plans to train and educate their members and to foster an organisational cybersecurity and cybercrime combatting culture.