The National Academies Press released a prepublication copy of the report, At the Nexus of Cybersecurity and Public Policy: Some Basic Concepts and Issues, which details the basics of current information technology systems and associated cybersecurity concerns. Written for a general audience, the full report is 102 pages. You can download the summary, individual chapters, or the findings at no cost.

My source for this is the HSDL – see their posting with more details here.

A brief excerpt from the summary gives you an idea of the magnitude of the challenge:

The report emphasizes two central ideas. The cybersecurity problem will never be solved once and for all. Solutions to the problem, limited in scope and longevity though they may be, are at least as much nontechnical as technical in nature.