Human-Human Communication in Cyber Threat Situations: A Systematic Review

Abstract. In cyber threat situations, decision-making within organizations and between the affected organization and external entities are high-stake situations. They require human communication entailing technical complexity, time pressure, interdisciplinary, and often insufficient information basis. Communication in cyber threat situations within socio-technical systems can thus be challenging and has a variety of implications for decision-making. The cyber-physical system is a rapidly changing socio-technical system that is understudied in terms of how cyber events are communicated and acted upon to secure and maintain cyber resilience. The present study is the first to review human-to-human communication in cyber threat situations. Our aims are to (1) outline how human-human communication performance in cybersecurity settings have been studied; (2) to uncover areas where there is potential for developing common standards for information exchange in collaborative settings, and; (3) to provide guidance for future research efforts. The review was carried out according to the PRISMA guidelines and articles were searched for on Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Taylor & Francis, and IEEE. Primary research articles and reviews focusing on human-human communication in cyber threat situations published in peer reviewed journals or as conference papers were included. A total of 17 studies were included in the final review. Most of the studies were correlational and exploratory in nature. Very few studies characterize communication in useful goal-related terms.