Sadie Creese and Jamie Saunders discuss the steps that need to be taken by technologists, businesses, government and the international community to ensure that our digital infrastructure continues to provide the level of resilience and security we need. The pandemic has accelerated digitisation across many sectors of the economy and society.

It is hard to imagine how many countries could have implemented lockdown measures to control the virus without the availability of digital technology to maintain at least a degree of economic and social activity. This technology has been remarkably resilient in the face of the increased demand. While there has been a perceptible increase in criminal activity seeking to exploit our increased dependence on IT during the pandemic, overall our systems and networks have held up well. This provides some confidence that the significant investment that government and business have made in operational resilience and cybersecurity over the past 10 years have paid off. However, future technology will bring a digital world of increased complexity, pace, scale and interdependence that will overwhelm many of the risk mitigations that are currently deployed. Without interventions now, it will be difficult to maintain the integrity of and trust in the technology on which we increasingly depend.

How confident can we be that the technology will prove equally resilient and secure in the event of a future major shock? In particular, is our collective approach to managing cyber risks sustainable in the face of the major technology trends taking place in the near future?