Future of Cyber Series: Cyber and the Future of National Resilience

The start of the 21st Century must go down as one of the most disrupted periods since the second world war. The global financial crisis in 2008, the advent of the global pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the ever-growing threat of climate change has tested, and continues to test, the resilience of societies and economies around the world. The UK Government is preparing a new national resilience strategy that may change the way major disasters are handled.
Technology has had a significant part to play, framed as a saviour, as is the case for remote working during the pandemic which was largely enabled by cloud-based services, as potential villain, as is the case of social media, initially seen as a force for good but increasingly argued as a cause of disinformation and fakery, rising mental health issues and political extremism, or as both, as is the case for AI, cryptocurrencies and facial recognition.
This session will explore whether the rapid adoption of these world-changing digital technologies introduce potential vulnerabilities and fragilities to the world of the future, what can be done to ensure they are safe to use and how should we think about resilience when traditional methodologies and ideas struggle to keep up with this changing landscape?