Cybersecurity governance: a prehistory and its implications

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the emerging challenges of cybersecurity governance by analyzing the internet’s early history. Design/methodology/approach Tracing the design and management of early internet and network security technologies in the USA in the 1970s and 1980s. Findings The US Department of Defense separated the research and management regimes for networks and network security, with the latter restricted to military networks. As such, the absence of cybersecurity technologies on the early internet was not an oversight, but a necessary compromise. This ordering of networks and security had enduring technological, political and even cultural consequences, which are breaking down today. Social implications Political, technological and metaphoric distinctions between networks and security should be challenged; cybersecurity will transform internet governance. Originality/value New historical sources and analysis provide a novel perspective on contemporary challenges of cybersecurity governance.