Cyber Statecraft Initiative Director Jason Healey co-writes for US News and World Report on the importance of managing cyber risk in order to avoid future catastrophes:
Twenty-five years ago, the Internet’s first “worm” spread quickly – a malicious piece of software that took down an estimated 10 percent of the early Internet within hours. The disruption, which lasted a few days, was the first “near miss” of a cybercatastrophe. Others followed, such as the 2006 earthquakes that severed most Asia undersea cables.
We have gotten used to the Internet being a bit slow at times, but essentially always being there. It has proven incredibly resilient because of a combination of stable technology and dedicated, even heroic, technicians keeping it working invisibly and reliably for the rest of us.
Yet these near misses hint at a larger truth: Just because the Internet has remained resilient in the face of accident and insult, it need not stay that way forever. The internet of tomorrow will likely be less resilient, less available and less robust than today.