Reflecting on the inception of cyberspace can help put current challenges into perspective. The internet was not designed with cybersecurity in mind, as it was originally the purview of a restricted circle of elite specialists with exclusive access to computers. Now that technology is almost ubiquitous and improvements in connectivity have increasingly brought our lives into the digital sphere, how can the technical and policy communities rise to the challenge of building products and services that are “cyber secure by design”? Can we even hope for attack-proof cyberspace in the future?
The Present of cyberspace highlights its unprecedented growth, as well as our increasing dependence on the technologies that underpin it. During the Covid-19 pandemic, for instance, people have been able to work remotely and carry out most of their everyday activities online. Yet this greater online exposure has also brought an increase in cybercrime. Groups of cybercriminals are now organised in cybercrime gangs whose online activity allows them to amass staggering wealth, to the point of being labelled cyber unicorns. Against this background, can we weather the growth of cybercriminal activities while reaping the benefits of the current digital revolution?
Thinking about these issues will not only involve law enforcement agencies and security specialists but also businesses and employers. Companies must now think deeply about how to embed cybersecurity in their business processes while operating under budget constraints. Besides, investing in cyber skills for the workforce is now a priority for both private and public sectors around the world. These and other challenges tint the present cyber landscape, making it a vibrant space for cooperation between the technical and policy community.
The future holds many threats to cybersecurity that threaten to disrupt cyberspace. In recent years, the popularity of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, has boomed. With this surge of popularity comes many challenges. As a decentralised technology, its regulation is unprecedented. This has raised concerns over the lack of security. Should we regulate cryptocurrencies, and if so, how?
In the long term, the advent of quantum computation poses a great risk to our privacy. Indeed, research has shown that if large scale quantum computers are developed, many cryptosystems that are currently deployed will be broken. This would greatly compromise the confidentiality and integrity of our digital communications, and we must construct alternative forms of cryptography that are secure against quantum computation.
In light of the above, our two-day summer school will seek to engage experts from industry and academia to learn more about the origins of cyberspace, and its current and future challenges. We believe this two-day event will highlight how the technical and policy dimensions of cybersecurity are tightly interconnected, and hence will show how socio-technical approaches to cybersecurity can better promote solutions to the above-mentioned “wicked” problems. Moreover, holding this event in person after two years of mostly online activities will provide a useful opportunity for researchers and practitioners in cybersecurity to come together and build a network of professional connections for future collaborations. Since UCL is hosting the summer school this year, this will be an opportunity for our institution (and our CDT programme) to enhance its profile as a place of reference for interdisciplinary cybersecurity research.