Cybersecurity and Sustainable Development – Bibliometric Study

The aim of this article is to explore the interdependencies between cybersecurity and sustainable development, to map the scientific landscape at their intersection using bibliometric techniques, and to identify emerging key research gaps. To investigate how this relationship has been addressed in the scholarly literature, a bibliometric review was conducted on selected 425 publications that include the terms ‘cybersecurity’ and ‘sustainable development’. The article presents a broad comparison of the Scopus and Web of Science databases, with a justification for choosing the Scopus database. Co-citation, keyword-co-occurrence and thematic-evolution analyses carried out with VOSviewer and Bibliometrix, respectively, allowed to identify four principal research themes: (1) smart-energy infrastructure and technical security, (2) cyber-resilient critical systems, (3) ESG-oriented digital management and (4) sustainable industrial transformation. The primary novelty of this study lies in its contributions aligned with the research questions: (RQ1) the exploration of the connections between the terms ‘cybersecurity’ and ‘sustainable development’; and (RQ2) the widening and presentation of the concept of green cybersecurity, defined as the deliberate design, deployment, and security solutions management that uphold environmental protection without compromising system resilience. The future research can focus on the multidisciplinary research agenda and strategy recommendations are then articulated to align ICT management and green jobs creation with circular-economy principles. Therefore, this study identified two relatively unexplored domains: (I) life-cycle-aware security design and (II) ultra-low-carbon cybersecurity.