Cybersecurity Culture as a Critical Component of Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation in SMEs

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are crucial to national and regional development and are significant drivers of job creation and income generation. To remain competitive, SMEs are increasingly adopting Digital Transformation (DT) and Business Model Innovation (BMI) to take advantage of modern digital technologies. However, these transformations can also pose serious cybersecurity risks if organisations do not prioritise cybersecurity threats associated with these modern technologies. Therefore, this conceptual desktop study examines the cybersecurity risks of information and communication technologies (ICT) utilised in DT and BMI processes and recommends fostering an appropriate cybersecurity culture to protect SMEs during and after these transformations. 

Keywords: Business model innovation (BMI), Cybersecurity culture, Digital transformation (DT), Small and medium enterprises (SMEs).