Cybersecurity Threats Outpacing Abilities of Governments and Companies

  • The World Economic Forum has released a new report, Cyber Resilience: Playbook for Public-Private Collaboration, to build collaboration across sectors to improve cybersecurity
  • The playbook precedes the launch of a new Global Centre for Cybersecurity at the Annual Meeting 2018 in Davos
  • The report covers access to sensitive data, rules for private companies to respond to cyber-threats, dissemination of threat intelligence and policies regulating encryption
  • Report provides 12 case studies — including Google’s Project Zero, the Department of Homeland Security’s Automated Indicator Sharing, and the United Kingdom’s Operation Waking Shark
  • The 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting will take place on 23-26 January in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, under the theme, Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World

Geneva, Switzerland, 12 January 2018 – Cybersecurity threats are outpacing the ability to overcome them unless all stakeholders begin to cooperate. The increasingly networked, digitized, and connected world is vulnerable to cyber-threats that can only be addressed by the combined capabilities of the public and private sectors, according to a new report by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Cyber Resilience: Playbook for Public-Private Collaboration is a tool to facilitate capacity-building, policies and processes necessary to support collaboration, safeguard cyberspace and strengthen cyber-resilience.

“We need to recognize cybersecurity as a public good and move beyond the polarizing rhetoric of the current security debate. Only through collective action can we hope to meet the global challenge of cybersecurity,” said Daniel Dobrygowski, Project Lead for Cyber Resilience at the World Economic Forum.

Working collaboratively in the cybersecurity space is difficult. Cyber-threats are complex, dynamic and increasingly personal as technology saturates our economy and society. Addressing these threats requires dialogue across industries and competencies, and on subjects from the technical to the ethical. Currently, dialogue between leaders in the public and private sectors is often off-target and at cross purposes. Policy implementation also varies by national context: every country has its own unique capabilities, vulnerabilities and priorities.

“There is no simple, elegant policy solution or silver bullet here. The iterative progress and feedback loop used in software development should be a model for improving policy,” said Walter Bohmayr, Global Leader of Cybersecurity at BCG.

The Cyber Resilience: Playbook for Public-Private Collaboration report helps leaders develop a baseline understanding of the key issues and pros and cons of different policy positions on cybersecurity. The policy models discussed in detail include Zero-Days, Vulnerability Liability, Botnet Disruption, Encryption, and 10 others.

In connecting norms and values to policy, the report encourages all actors to move past absolute and rigid positions towards more nuanced discussions aimed at solving key challenges, and presents the implications of policy choices on five key values: security, privacy, economic value, accountability and fairness. Cyber-resilience will continue to be a top-of-mind topic for decision-makers, and the Forum intends to continue leading future efforts in this space through its new Global Centre for Cybersecurity, which will be presented at the Annual Meeting in Davos.

The report can be downloaded at http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Cyber_Resilience_Playbook.pdf.

The World Economic Forum’s 48th Annual Meeting will take place on 23-26 January 2018 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. Three thousand leaders from around the world will gather in a collaborative effort to shape the global, regional and industry agendas, with a commitment to improve the state of the world.

The Annual Meeting brings together governments, international organizations, business, civil society, cultural leaders, media, foremost experts and the young generation from all over the world, at the highest level and in representative ways. For further information, please click here.

 

The World Economic Forum, committed to improving the state of the world, is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.

The Forum engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. (www.weforum.org)