Cyberattacks in government organizations

A systematic literature review of attack types and mitigation strategies

Abstract

In the digital government era, the government must protect citizens’ data from cyberattacks to gain public trust. This study aims to identify the type of cyberattack incidents in government organizations and the implementation strategies to prevent cyberattacks. In this study, we conduct the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) approach to answer our research questions. It performs a detailed analysis based on 50 peer-reviewed articles published in the conference proceedings and journals from January 2020 to December 2024. Those articles are retrieved from five databases: ACM Digital Library, Engineering Village, IEEE Xplore, the University at Albany Library, and Web of Science. The results revealed six types of cyberattacks in government organizations: malware, denial-of-service attacks, phishing attacks, false data injection, supply chain attacks, and advanced persistent threats. Furthermore, our review showed that four strategies have been implemented to prevent cyberattacks: 1) developing national cybersecurity strategies and frameworks, 2) building cyber defense capacity, 3) enhancing infrastructure resilience, and 4) education, training, and awareness. This study contributes to the field by providing different types of cyberattacks associated with government organizations and presenting a centralized and comprehensive analysis of research work in security, which is an excellent resource for other researchers in a similar field. Finally, this study also offers practical implications for government organizations, providing strategies to help them prevent cyberattacks.