On the Future of Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity has been a topic of interest for decades, almost as long as the internet has been in existence. In the beginning, the nature and motives behind cyber attacks weren’t well understood, which caused a skewed perception of what aspects of the internet were important to protect. As time passed, and computers became exponentially more efficient, earlier protection techniques quickly became outdated, and new methods needed to be developed to replace them.

In 2015, $70 billion was spent on defending against cyber crime attacks, and this number is expected to more than double by 2020. In order to keep up with advancing cyber attacks, we must consider the structure of our cyber defence. There are 3 main areas of interest when considering a cyber protection scheme: Organizational, Technical, and Political. Organizational protection refers to things like the security of a system that comes about with its design. Technical protection is more concerned with the specific technology used to achieve protection, and their accuracy/effectiveness. Finally, political protection refers to the laws and standards regarding what is allowed in a security system. The most debated of which is the topic of user attribution. In order to have a well-protected network, we must consider all of these intersectionally. We must think about how they are connected, and how we can design a well-protected system while keeping these all in mind. In order to keep up with rapidly advancing attacks, we must consider the problem areas in these areas, and provide a system that accounts for them effectively.