American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research
310
https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ajsshr
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue05 2025
PAGE NO.
310-315
10.37547/ajsshr/Volume05Issue05-61
The Impact of Digital Technologies On Public
Administration In The International Information Society
Nurullayeva Durdona
Master degree student 1- course, Tashkent state university of oriental studies, Uzbekistan
Received:
14 March 2025;
Accepted:
26 April 2025;
Published:
30 May 2025
Abstract:
This article discusses the current problems of cybercrime and online extortion on the Internet. In
particular, such cases, which occur frequently in the global information society, are not only criminal, but also cause
material, moral and spiritual problems. The government, which plays a key role in the functional economic and
social development of society, is also experiencing significant economic losses due to such crimes. At the same time,
cyber attacks are causing significant damage not only to the public sector, but also to the education, healthcare,
and banking systems. The article examines cybercrimes committed in various sectors and provides conclusions on
their prevention.
Keywords: -
Digital transformation, OECD, Artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, digital government,
cyberattacks,education sector, healthcare system, cryptocurrency, Cyber transformation.
Introduction:
The public sector plays a key role in the functioning and
development of society, providing citizens with access
to essential services such as health, education, security
and social protection, as well as performing regulatory
functions, infrastructure development and business
support. In today's world, government agencies are
also responsible for managing vast amounts of data,
including citizens' personal information, financial
records, and strategic information important to
national security. To adapt to the digital era and take
advantage of its benefits to maximize operational
efficiency, the public sector in many countries is
undergoing digital transformation. In 2022, nearly all
OECD countries (29 out of 30) reported that they were
developing and implementing national digital
government strategies. In Europe, according to the
strategic program for the digital decade, by 2030 the
goal is to make all basic government services available
online and give access to a digital identity card to all
citizens. In Russia, by 2030, it is planned that 100% of
executive branch employees will use government
communication services in their work, all government
services will be provided with the ability to obtain
results online, and 90% of mandatory reporting
documents will be collected and stored electronically .
The public sector requires to be digital by design to fully
adapt and take advantage of the digital age for better
serving people, improving policy making and maximise
government performance (OECD, 2020a). Becoming
digital by design requires: 1) setting a strategic vision
and clear mandate for digital government; 2) securing
solid organizational leadership to steer digital
government policies and actions; and 3) establishing
effective co-ordination and collaboration within and
outside the public sector for government-wide digital
transformation in a coherent and inclusive manner.
More notably countries have made considerable
progress in establishing formal co-ordination bodies or
mechanisms
responsible
for
steering
digital
government policies and initiatives in the public sector,
such as Korea’s e
-Government Promotion Committee
or
Luxembourg’s
Inter
-ministerial Council for
Digitisation. In 2019, 18 out of 26 countries (69%) had
such a div or mechanism in place, rising to 29 out of
30 (97%) in 2022. his means that seven countries have
since established one. Implementation and use of AI in
the public sector also vary across countries. Twenty-
three of the 30 countries surveyed (77%) reported
using AI in at least one of three evaluated categories:
public sector internal processes, public services design
and delivery, and policy making. Looking specifically at
each category, 22 out of 30 countries (73%) used AI to
improve internal public sector processes. For instance,
Fi
nland’s Aurora AI recommends public services to end
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users based on their attributes. In contrast, only a small
number of countries (11 out of 30, or 37%) have applied
AI to improve policy making, such as Estonia’s semi
-
automatic remote sensing information system for geo-
referencing
forest
resources
and
improving
environmental decision-making capabilities. Only ten
countries (33%) are using AI across all three categories
while seven (23%) have not developed AI projects in
any of the three categories .
The higher the level of digital development, the more
the state depends on technology. The rapid pace of
technological progress is not always accompanied by a
corresponding pace of strengthening cybersecurity.
Cyber threats such as cyber espionage, hacktivism, and
cyberattacks for extortion or disruption pose a serious
threat to the public sector. Attackers, whether lone
actors, organized crime groups or hacktivists, seek to
gain access to sensitive information, disrupt
government systems and extract economic, political or
strategic benefits from it. The study presents the
landscape of current cyber threats to the public sector,
based on data on successful cyberattacks from 2022 to
the first half of 2024. During the research of the shadow
market, we analyzed 213 sources, including telegram
channels and forums on the dark web with a total
number of users of more than 38 million and a total
number of messages of more than 155 million. The
sample included the largest sites in different languages
with a diverse thematic focus. To analyze the access
market, advertisements published in 2023
–
2024 were
considered. The most popular targets for attackers
over the entire period under review were computers,
servers and network equipment: 80% of successful
attacks were directed at them. Government agencies
employ large numbers of personnel who are also
susceptible to attack by attackers: in almost half of the
incidents (47%), attackers used human factors
weaknesses
and
social
engineering
methods.
Moreover, people are increasingly becoming targets of
attacks: the number of incidents increased from 43% in
the first half of 2023 to 49% in the second half of the
year and to 57% in the first half of 2024 . Web
resources were targeted by attackers in 36% of
successful attacks. In a tense geopolitical environment,
the threat of attacks from hacktivists has increased
significantly. Their favorite methods are massive DdoS
attacks and website defacements, which we will
consider in more detail below.
In malware attacks, the consequences are devastating
and lead to serious disruptions and leaks. In April 2023,
a Royal ransomware attack on the city of Dallas’
computer servers caused police, court, 911, online bill
payment, and public library systems to crash. As a
result of the leak, the attackers gained access to 1.2 TB
of confidential data of more than 26,000 people . The
most common type of crime is Ransomware. It is
through it that every year millions of losses are caused
to the public sector, government and other sectors.
Ransomware is a form of malicious software that
infiltrates a computer or network and limits or restricts
access to critical data by encrypting files until a ransom
is paid. The first use of ransomware dates back to 1989,
when floppy disks were high-tech and the price of the
ransom was a mere $189. Ransomware attacks are on
the rise and continue to be a disruptive force in the
cybersecurity industry, affecting everything from
financial institutions to higher education. Ransomware
attacks targeted the education sector more than any
other industry in the last year, with 79 percent of
surveyed higher education institutions across the world
reporting being hit . Lower education reported
compromised credentials (36%) and exploited
vulnerabilities (29%) as the top two root causes of
ransomware attacks. Emails (malicious emails or
phishing) were the starting points for nearly one-third
of the attacks (30%), suggesting that the lower
education sector is highly exposed to email-based
threats. In higher education, exploited vulnerabilities
(40%) were the most common root cause of
ransomware attacks, with compromised credentials
falling in second place at 37%. Together, they account
for over three-quarters of ransomware attacks (77%) in
higher education. Email-based attacks (malicious email
or phishing) are a less common root cause but still drive
almost one in five ransomware incidents (19%) .
Across the full survey cohort, higher education was one
of the sectors most likely to report exploited
vulnerabilities as the root cause of attacks. At the same
time, lower education was one of the sectors most
likely to have attacks originating from compromised
credentials.
The next step is the health care system which was
already stretched and stressed by the pandemic,
continued to be heavily targeted in 2020 with at least
560 facilities being impacted in 80 separate incidents
(an attack on a health system can impact multiple
facilities). The most significant incident of the year was
the attack on the Universal Health Services which
operates around 400 hospitals and other healthcare
facilities. Other significant incidents included the
attacks on Boston Children’s Hospital, Crozer
-Keystone
Health System, University of Vermont Health Network,
and Lake Region Healthcare. The impact of the attacks
was alarming: ambulances were rerouted, radiation
treatments for cancer patients were delayed, medical
records were rendered temporarily inaccessible and, in
some cases, permanently lost, while hundreds of staff
were furloughed as a result of the disruptions. The
University of Vermont Health Network, which
furloughed 300 staff, estimated the cost of the attack
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at $1.5 million per day. PHI and other sensitive data was
stolen in multiple incidents and published online in at
least 12 incidents. The 12 incidents all occurred in the
second half of the year .
Since the start of bitcoin, the world’s first
cryptocurrency, transferring money and data has
become increasingly efficient. Now, the size of the
cryptocurrency space has grown exponentially, with
innovations and a collective market capitalization of
more than $1.2 trillion. But with this advancement in
digital and financial technology, new threats in
cybersecurity have come to the surface. Crypto
payments to ransomware attackers hit $449.1 million
in the first half of 2023, up $175.8 million from the
same period last year . In 2022, the total
cryptocurrency value received by illicit addresses was
$20.6 billion
—
an all time high . Hackers who attacked
an oil company earned over $90 million in Bitcoin.
Elliptic found that there were 47 bitcoin wallets
—
that
is, digital cryptocurrency accounts belonging to distinct
entities
—
that paid Bitcoin ransoms to the group of
hackers. The total amount of the ransoms, paid in
untraceable cryptocurrencies, was more than $90
million. The group became active in October 2020 and
scaled up its operations in 2021. Ransomware attacks
are on the rise in the US, with Temple University data
cited by the Washington Post showing a record high of
almost 400 attacks in 2020. The Washington Post
reported that experts are concerned about the trend as
hackers
target
cities,
hospitals,
and
critical
infrastructure this year .
Between 2018 and December 2023, 423 individual
ransomware attacks were carried out against US
government organizations, potentially impacting more
than 250 million people and costing an estimated
$860.3 million in downtime. After three consecutive
years of attacks on government organizations declining
(dropping from 118 in 2019 to just 40 in 2022), 2023
saw a significant uptick. It saw 69 attacks
–
a 73 percent
year-on-year increase. In this update, we changed the
way we calculate downtime figures. Previously, we
used an estimate that placed downtime per minute at
$8,772 across a number of industries. That estimate
came from a 2017 study and does not solely relate to
government organizations. Over the last few years, we
have collated a large amount of data on the true cost
of ransomware attacks on the government. We now
use an average cost of ransomware recovery as quoted
by 69 government organizations. For example, in 2023,
seven government organizations spent $10.8 million on
ransomware recovery efforts. Based on the number of
days lost to these recoveries, we calculated an average
cost per day of $167,798 in downtime. When applying
this average daily downtime cost to government
organizations that haven’t disclosed costs, we estimate
they accumulated $181.3 million in downtime costs
throughout the year .
The large volume of data accumulated in government
information systems and the critical importance of
government functions make the public sector the most
common target of cybercriminals: our data shows that
over the past six years, the public sector has led the way
in the percentage of successful cyberattacks. Of all
successful attacks on organizations in 2023, 15%
occurred in the public sector. In the first half of 2024,
the trend continues, and this figure is 14%. In a tense
geopolitical climate, the threat of attacks from
hacktivists has grown like never before. Their favorite
methods are massive DdoS attacks and website
defacements, but other methods are also growing in
popularity, such as exploiting software vulnerabilities:
for example, hackers successfully exploited a
vulnerability in the Red Alert application . You need to
be prepared for attacks: use firewalls (WAFs), monitor
traffic to identify anomalies, use services to protect
against DdoS attacks, and promptly fix identified
vulnerabilities. In addition, some organizations are
already actively adopting technologies such as AI to
improve security systems. As an example Tel Aviv, June
27 (Reuters)
–
Israel’s Shin Bet security service has
incorporated artificial intelligence into its tradecraft
and used the technology to foil substantial threats, its
dir
ector said on Tuesday, highlighting generative AI’s
potential for law-enforcement. Among measures taken
by the Shin Bet
–
the Israeli counterpart of the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigations or Britain’s MI5 –
has
been the creation of its own generative AI platform,
akin to ChatGPT or Bard, director Ronen Bar said. “AI
technology has been incorporated quite naturally into
the Shin Bet’s interdiction machine,” Bar said in a
speech to the Cyber Week conference hosted by Tel
Aviv University. “Using AI, we have
spotted a not-
inconsequential number of threats.” AI has helped
streamline Shin Bet work by flagging anomalies in
surveillance data and sorting through “endless”
intelligence, he said, adding that the technology also
had a secondary role in decision-makin
g “like a partner
at the table, a co-
pilot”. Acknowledging the public
-
domain backbone of the fast-emerging technology, Bar
urged cooperation between commercial hi-tech and
government agencies such as his “to ensure AI leads to
evolution and not to revoluti
on” .
Bloomberg claims that Israeli security services are
recruiting companies, including spyware maker
Pegasus, to help track hostages in the Gaza Strip . In
the second quarter, PT Expert Security Center
specialists discovered a new lightweight stealer written
in Go and designed to search (by extensions) and send
files from the home directory and local drives, as well
as the contents of the clipboard and screenshots, to the
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command server. Another example is spyware that
imitates the ChatGPT client for Windows, which is
distributed as a ZIP archive containing the ChatGPT For
Windows Setup 1.0.0.exe file. During the installation
process, the malware runs in the background and starts
extracting saved credentials from your Google Chrome
login credentials folder. ChatGPT has not released an
official desktop client, but this fake version looks very
convincing. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the share of
spyware in successful attacks increased to 25% - in our
opinion, this trend will continue to be relevant in 2024.
Categories of victims among organizations (proportion of successful cyber attacks)
The share of spyware among all malware used in
attacks on Russian organizations was 45%, while
ransomware accounted for only 27% (while worldwide,
ransomware was used in 57% of successful attacks on
organizations). This is due to several factors. Firstly, the
level of security of Russian organizations is growing,
which helps to effectively stop ransomware attacks.
Secondly, the difficult geopolitical situation has
provoked an increase in the number of attacks using
spyware. Thus, the FSB, together with the Russian
Federal Security Service, uncovered an intelligence
campaign by American intelligence services carried out
using Apple mobile devices using unknown malware
that exploited software vulnerabilities provided by the
manufacturer . One of the leading Russian
cybersecurity companies was also subjected to such an
attack.
Crimes related to Internet networks and mobile devices
differ from other common crimes in that they can be
committed remotely from anywhere in the world. They
could result in damage to the friendly cooperation
between the two countries or, at the very least, cause
international problems. There are several problems
related to cybersecurity in our country as well. The
UzCert service has released data on the number of
incidents aimed at cyber security infringement in the
first quarter of this year. In the first quarter of 2024,
during monitoring, 70 vulnerabilities and weaknesses
were identified and eliminated on 19 web resources of
government agencies and organizations. During this
period, over 3,290,860 cyberattacks were recorded in
the national segment of the Internet. For the purpose
of identifying and collecting information about existing
vulnerabilities and threats in cyberspace and taking
measures to eliminate them, information about more
than 369,660 cyber threats detected in the information
infrastructures of government bodies and other
organizations was transmitted to the relevant
organizations through the monitoring systems of the
Center. Due to non-compliance with cybersecurity
requirements, incidents with attempts on cyber
security have been identified on 45 sites located in the
“UZ” domain zone over the last 3 months. Of these, 12
belong to government bodies and 33 to the private
sector . Despite this, Uzbekistan has achieved
significant growth in the global cybersecurity index and
is positively assessed. Uzbekistan has improved its
position in the global cybersecurity index, according to
the Global Cybersecurity Index 2024 report. According
to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU),
Uzbekistan has made significant progress in the field of
cybersecurity. The country is now included in the
category of countries with an actively developing
cyberspace protection system (T2 Advancing) . Since
2020, Uzbekistan’s index has incr
eased from 71.11 to
89.2 points. Earlier, Kun.uz wrote that the President of
Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a law on
cybersecurity.
Government organizations, businesses, and any online
organization must implement cyber transformation.
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Cyber
transformation
must
be
carried
out
comprehensively for the entire state, in a coordinated
manner for all state organizations. If a vulnerability is
not eliminated in one state institution and this leads to
consequences for citizens, then it will not be so
important which state structure is to blame: the state
will suffer the damage. To strengthen the protection of
IT infrastructure components, it is necessary to ensure
safe and effective configuration of target, key systems
and penetration points. To do this, it is necessary to pay
attention to operating systems and applications, web
resources,
domain
infrastructure,
virtualization
environments and cloud services. Regular training of
employees and managers with knowledge testing
reduces the number of successful cyber attacks on the
organization. Every employee of a government
organization should know such aspects of cybersecurity
as strong passwords, protection from phishing,
software updates, information confidentiality, safe use
of public wireless networks, secure channels and
mobile devices. To prevent unacceptable events from
occurring, it is necessary to create a threat
counteraction center. This could be a global center for
the automated collection of events unacceptable for
the state in one place. Such a center will monitor
events and promptly identify and respond to suspicious
activities or other deviations from the norm that may
be indicators of attacks, and take measures to counter
intruders. It is necessary to identify critical
government business processes and modernize them
to improve quality, productivity, security, and reduce
their cost. It is also extremely important to properly
organize the work and communication between IT and
information security departments . To determine the
current state of security and understand the need for
further steps, it is necessary to define metrics for
effective
cybersecurity
and
conduct
regular
assessments using them.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that in today’s era of
global
development,
the
dynamics
of
the
comprehensive growth of countries are taken into
account. In particular, the position of countries is
determined by how strong they are, especially through
achievements in the economy, healthcare, education
and many other areas. But we would not be wrong to
say that the 21st century is the century of technology
and engineering, and digital technologies are
dominating other areas. Nowadays, the need to create
new innovative technologies is increasing even more.
Although the rapidly developing digital technologies
and the emergence of the Internet have had a positive
impact on people and their work, this does not mean
that it is completely harmless or flawless. We know
how to use the internet, but do we understand how to
protect ourselves from it? Cyberattacks, which have
become one of the most pressing problems of today,
are precisely related to the development of
technologies. To prevent such online extortion, it is
necessary to strengthen cybersecurity measures and
develop with the times.
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