Cybersecurity for Infrastructure: Project Syndicate

The Covid-19 pandemic underscores society’s reliance on infrastructure, including the internet for communication and data exchanges as well as health-care systems. Malevolent forces target social media with disinformation and hospitals and laboratories with ransomware, phishing and other malicious programs. Over the past two months, such attacks have occurred every three days, yet governments avoid an effective systematic and collective response, report Marietje Schaake and Stéphane Duguin for Project Syndicate. "There is a persistent lack of consistency in how international law is applied and enforced,” they explain. “Many countries have a deep digital divide in technical capacity, and have failed to put human rights at the center of cybersecurity discussions.” Individuals can apply caution in opening attachments or forwarding emails – while organizations of all types must invest in cybersecurity. Governments must determine the sources and methods of attacks, warning citizens while protecting hospitals and other critical institutions. – YaleGlobal