Evaluation of Cybersecurity Management Controls and Metrics of Critical Infrastructures: A Literature Review Considering the NIST Cybersecurity Framework

In recent years, cybersecurity management has gained considerable attention due to a rising number and also increasing severity of cyberattacks in particular targeted at critical infrastructures of countries. Especially rapid digitization holds many vulnerabilities that can be easily exploited if not managed appropriately. Consequently, the European Union (EU) has enacted its first directive on cybersecurity. It is based on the Cybersecurity Framework by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and requires critical infrastructure organizations to regularly monitor and report their cybersecurity efforts. We investigated whether the academic body of knowledge in the area of cybersecurity metrics and controls has covered the constituent NIST functions, and also whether NIST shows any noticeable gaps in relation to literature. Our analysis revealed interesting results in both directions, pointing to imbalances in the academic discourse and underrepresented areas in the NIST framework. In terms of the former, we argue that future research should engage more into detecting, responding and recovering from incidents. Regarding the latter, NIST could also benefit from extending into a number of identified topic areas, for example, natural disasters, monetary aspects, and organizational climate.