Geneva: 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.
