Communications of the ACM
Future Series: Cybersecurity, Emerging Technology and Systemic Risk
Unless action is taken now, by 2025 next-generation technology has the potential to overwhelm the defenses of the global security community.
Credit: World Economic Forum
In under a decade, cybersecurity has emerged as one of the most important systemic issues for the global economy. Collective global spending has now reached $145 billion a year, and is predicted to have exceeded $1 trillion in the period between 2017 and 2021. Incidents and attacks continue to rise, but this is only the tip of a new and growing problem.
The days of fragmented security are behind us. Security must be more proactive and future-proof if we are to out-innovate the attackers.
—Nikesh Arora, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Palo Alto Networks, USA
Cloudy outlook for technology transformation
The critical technology transformations on which future prosperity relies – ubiquitous connectivity, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and next-generation approaches to identity and access management – will not just be incremental challenges for the security community.
They have the potential to generate new and systemic risks for the global ecosystem, and at this stage, their full impact is not well understood. This suggests the urgent need for collective action, policy intervention and improved accountability for government and business. Without interventions now, it will be difficult to maintain the integrity and trust in the emerging technology on which future global growth depends.
From World Economic Forum
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