The COVID pandemic is a challenge that will eventually create health risks to Americans and have long-lasting effects. For many, this is a tragedy, a threat to life, health, and finances. What draws our attention is what COVID-19 has meant our society, the economy, and how in an unprecedented way, family, corporations, schools, and government agencies quickly had to adjust to a new reality. Why does this matter from a cyber perspective?
COVID-19 has created increased stress on our logistic, digital, public, and financial systems and this could in fact resemble what a major cyber conflict would mean to the general public. It is also essential to assess what matters to the public during this time. COVID-19 has created a widespread disruption of work, transportation, logistics, distribution of food and necessities to the public, and increased stress on infrastructures, from Internet connectivity to just-in-time delivery. It has unleashed abnormal behaviors.
A potential adversary will likely not have the ability to take down an entire sector of our critical infrastructure, or business eco-system, for several reasons. First, awareness and investments in cybersecurity have drastically increased the last two decades. This in turn reduced the number of single points of failure and increased the number of built-in redundancies as well as the ability to maintain operations in a degraded environment.
