On September 2 at 10:00 a.m., Thomas Rehbohm will defend his dissertation on “Contributions to a Reference Architecture for Federal Cybersecurity Management” in Room 001 (Konrad Zuse House).
Abstract
The information technology of the new millennium is characterised by changing framework conditions for the state, economy and society. In particular, the globalisation of production processes, the more flexible workplace design of employees in terms of location and time, the fundamental technological changes towards cloud computing, increasing digitalisation and the use of AI systems are having a lasting impact on the traditional view of information and communication systems. The dependence on the supply chain is blatant, while at the same time the expectation of uninterrupted availability of ICT systems is often. Companies as well as state institutions must face up to these challenges in order to provide adequate collective protection against threats on the one hand and to protect the economy and society in this order on the other. Information security is therefore important and indispensable for all organisations. The state has a coordinating role to play here.
Considering the opportunities and the wide-ranging research in the field of information security, an enterprise architecture – transferred to public administration – should make an accepted and appropriate contribution to continuously strengthening services of general interest. Organisational structures are needed that are adapted from corporate development and researched and adapted to the requirements of the state in order to withstand the change processes of information technology. This research work in the field of enterprise architecture management is carried out along the lines of design science research. In principle, the result of the research work proposes a reference model in the federal context of Germany, which meets the challenges of a dynamically changing IT landscape with an increasing threat situation. This thesis applies the design science research process to propose a reference architecture. It is a problem solution from the practical environment of the ministerial state administrations in Germany. The research process is carried out in iterative steps, from the requirements analysis to the evaluation of the results and their publication.