The Covid-19 pandemic can be seen as a “natural” social laboratory for understanding the relation between certain technical and social variables, namely, the role that the use of digital technologies plays in accommodating social dynamics and vice versa, engaging in a dialogue with the traditional question in Social Studies of Science and Technology about how technology and society are mutually configured.

It is this opportunity that leads this approach to take a specific look at the field of cybersecurity, with a focus on Portugal in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. It proposes an analysis of a set of indicators of cybersecurity incidents and cybercrime that represent a significant moment for security in cyberspace during the pandemic. The aspect being analysed refers to the tension between technical and social dynamics in the unfolding of the threats that have emerged in the face of digital uses. The strong hypothesis is that cybersecurity - a domain with high technological sophistication - cannot be understood without recognising its social variables.

Bio note

Pedro Xavier Mendonça works at the National Cybersecurity Centre (CNCS) and is a researcher at UNIDCOM-IADE. At the CNCS, he is responsible for the Cybersecurity Observatory. He has a degree in Philosophy from the University of Coimbra, a Master's in Communication, Culture and Information Technologies from ISCTE-IUL and a PhD in Social Sciences - General Sociology from the ICS of the University of Lisbon, where he was a collaborating researcher. He was a PhD visiting student at Lancaster University, England. His research interests focus on the Social Studies of Technology, with an emphasis on the relationship between digitalisation, communication and users, as well as the role of human behaviour in cybersecurity. In higher education, over the years, he has taught Communication Sciences and Social Sciences subjects, with a focus on the Social Studies of Technology. He has also taught Philosophy and Psychology in secondary education and Citizenship in vocational training.