Cybersecurity and the digitalisation of public administration: transforming the concept of administrative legality

This article examines cybersecurity as a new structural criterion of legitimacy for administrative action in the digital society. Cybersecurity can no longer be conceived as a purely technical requirement; instead, it has evolved into a principle-value that reshapes how public authorities identify, balance and protect public and private interests. Institutional trust, service continuity and the effectiveness of digital rights increasingly depend on the resilience of the digital infrastructures underpinning public activity. Consequently, administrative meritworthiness is defined not only by procedural conformity or cost-efficiency, but by the capacity to prevent systemic vulnerabilities and to safeguard integrity, transparency and data protection. Cybersecurity thus emerges as a decisive parameter of administrative performance and a meta-value guiding the balance between competition, cost-effectiveness and national security, signalling a profound transformation of the public interest within the contemporary digital ecosystem.