Article Preview
TopIntroduction
It has been reported in various articles in journals, conferences, and newspapers that Bangladesh is making progress in adopting and implementing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in various sectors of public and private operations (Hussain et al., 2021; Ahmad, 2021; Kabir, 2021; Aziz, 2020; Zaman, 2019). According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) report, Bangladesh has been ranked 147 out of 176 countries on the ICT Development Index 2017. This Index ranking of ICT Development shows the progress of ICT development in Bangladesh (International Trade Administration, 2021). Furthermore, it has been also reported by Rahman (2021) that Bangladesh is making progress in ICT among various other sectors in the country. According to the Global Innovation Index (GII), a report published by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Bangladesh has ranked 92nd positions among 132 countries in knowledge and technology indicators. The survey report presented by United Nations (UN) published in 2020 provides the rank of E-Government service development trends known as E-Government Development Index (EGDI). The EGDI shows that Bangladesh and some other least developed countries are making rapid progress in delivering public electronic services to their citizens, employees, and various business organizations (UN Report, 2021).
Furthermore, in today’s modern world, the economy and social interactions are highly reliant on computer networks and the use of information technology solutions. Hence, the issue regarding cyber security emerges as a critical concern in modern economic operations as millions of various types of electronic devices are interconnected to produce electronic services for the use of citizens and business organizations (Jang-Jaccard and Nepal, 2014; Wang and Lu, 2013).
However, despite the overall ranking of technology progression and advancement in Bangladesh the maturity level of the technology implementation and its use in various individual sectors has not been studied yet to provide an understanding of where do Bangladesh belongs in terms of technology advancement and its use in each of the individual sectors. There is a significant research gap to understand where Bangladesh stands in terms of providing electronic services by each of the individual service providing sectors and ensuring their cybersecurity and protecting the vulnerabilities of cybercrimes that are taking place in recent times in Bangladesh. Therefore, the research motivation of this study is to delve into the matter of technology trends and cybersecurity and its current situation among various individual sectors in Bangladesh. Hence, the research question of our study is:
In order to operationalize the research question, the objective of this study is to analyze the existing literature presented in various sectors of Bangladesh and discuss their maturity level in terms of technology advancement and cyber security. For this purpose, Layne and Lee’s (2001) proposed a framework for ICT maturity levels that have been adopted as a guideline in this research to discuss the maturity of ICT use in various sectors in Bangladesh. The major contribution of this study can be derived as providing an understanding of the current trends and maturity of technology use, particularly the use of ICT in various individual sectors of Bangladesh as the some of the reports such as ITU, GII, WIPO, UN are providing an overall ranking of ICT advancement in Bangladesh where it is not too farfetched to state that not all sectors are equally progressing in ICT advancement. The policymaker and tech leader of the individual sectors can understand where they belong in terms of technology use and advancement and how to get things improved for better service quality and delivery.