Abu Dhabi, Nov 14 : Emerging disruptive technologies are changing the rules of the game as they are too complex to manage and collaborative effort is needed to tackle cybersecurity threats, top experts said at an event in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
“Cybersecurity cannot be impacted by a single entity. It needs to be a collaborative effort and we need to have a ‘Geneva Convention’ for cybersecurity,” Dr. Mohamed Hamad Al Kuwaiti, Head, Cybersecurity in the United Arab Emirates Government, said during a panel discussion of the Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate (ADSD).
Dr. Fabio Rugge, Head, the Centre on Cybersecurity of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), said events like the ADSD create awareness about the importance of cybersecurity.
“Cybersecurity is a team sport. We need to involve academics, governments and ordinary citizens to create a culture of security and develop norms of cybersecurity. Cyberspace has become a critical element of national security and is the domain of ambiguity. We are witnessing a security paradox in which everyone is engaged in reinforcing their own security but we are actually becoming less secure,” he said during a panel on ‘Technology, Cybersecurity, and the Future of Global Politics’.
Al Kuwaiti added that cyber-attacks are happening every moment and there was a need for effective rules.
“Data is the next oil, and private companies own a lot of the infrastructure and they play with this data, therefore rules need to be laid down. No one nation can deal with cybersecurity ambiguity, it needs collaboration.”
Jean-Marc Rickli, Head, Global and Emerging Risks at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), said the convergence of power today is not witnessed in history.
“Once technology is developed, the rate of proliferation is enormous, which has security implications,” he said, citing the example of deep fake, which did not exist before 2014.
“Increasingly, with the development of technology, we will be able to tap directly into human brains, and we may see brain-computer interfaces. With the rapid rise of new technologies, we are seeing a convergence of power and wealth into the hands of a few companies and individuals that we have not seen before.”
Dr. Hadi Saleh, Associate Professor of the School of Software Engineering, Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow, and Lead Solution Architect, said artificial intelligence has become an essential part of our everyday lives and entities cannot use traditional methods to tackle attacks anymore.
“We need to provide more training in cybersecurity for employees, and introduce it into our schools and universities for ordinary people. Cybersecurity needs to become part of our culture. The gap between hackers and government capabilities in cybersecurity is becoming smaller by the day.”
Saleh added that artificial intelligence enhances accuracy in detecting and improving the response system.
The two-day Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate brings together top decision-makers, strategic studies experts, and scholars from all over the world to focus on the regional and international environments in the post-Covid era. (IANS)