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- Trend snippet: Key transformative technology that will contribute to the changing dynamics of cyberspace: Ubiquitous connectivity
Trends in Security Information
The HSD Trendmonitor is designed to provide access to relevant content on various subjects in the safety and security domain, to identify relevant developments and to connect knowledge and organisations. The safety and security domain encompasses a vast number of subjects. Four relevant taxonomies (type of threat or opportunity, victim, source of threat and domain of application) have been constructed in order to visualize all of these subjects. The taxonomies and related category descriptions have been carefully composed according to other taxonomies, European and international standards and our own expertise.
In order to identify safety and security related trends, relevant reports and HSD news articles are continuously scanned, analysed and classified by hand according to the four taxonomies. This results in a wide array of observations, which we call ‘Trend Snippets’. Multiple Trend Snippets combined can provide insights into safety and security trends. The size of the circles shows the relative weight of the topic, the filters can be used to further select the most relevant content for you. If you have an addition, question or remark, drop us a line at info@securitydelta.nl.
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Key transformative technology that will contribute to the changing dynamics of cyberspace: Ubiquitous connectivity
Systemic risks related to this development:
-Scale and criticality: The sheer scale of the connected ecosystem means that the potential attack surface is expanding rapidly. As previously unconnected systems become connected to each other and to the internet, there is an increased risk to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of digital assets – whether it’s data, information, algorithms or digital services. The potential implications in terms of compromise for industry and society are becoming more severe.
-Interdependency: A range of new entangled relationships between actors in the digital ecosystem is evolving. The emergence
of new products and growth of new service-based models is creating complex interdependencies between organizations, supply chains, sectors and individuals. This interdependency creates a risk of unforeseen cascade effects: Incidents occurring in one part of the ecosystem could harm those actors and systems dependent on it. Imbalance in perceptions of risk could lead to situations where high-value business., assets are connected to third-party systems whose owners assess them to be low risk and that therefore do not have the appropriate levels of protection. A failure to maintain the visibility and assign the accountability that is needed to assure end-to-end processes across multiple parts of the ecosystem could lead to gaps in security and heightened risk.
-Shared resources: Many entities are sharing a growing dependence on a concentrated underpinning infrastructure and set of shared services, including cloud, internet service providers, hardware, software and the equipment supply chain. This creates an attack
surface of high-value shared resources with a high probability of attack, and the potential for compromise to have severe and systemic
impacts. The homogeneity of the shared technology infrastructure that results from its being delivered by a small pool of providers may result in systemic risk, as the exploitation of a vulnerability found in a widely used resource could affect vast swathes of the ecosystem. Similarly, there is a risk of collateral damage occurring as a result of targeted attacks against a single client via this shared infrastructure. Identifying the critical shared resources, who owns them and their key dependencies is a complex task.
The rapid increase in the number of connected devices and networks on a global scale means that relationships across the digital ecosystem have become increasingly intertwined. From a security perspective, this brings about a number of challenges; in particular, how can organizations receive clarity and assurance on the security of the digital foundations of many of their operations from end to end? This is also relevant for governments, which increasingly rely on digital systems for many of their critical infrastructures and services.
A more holistic approach is urgently required that considers the resilience of the ecosystem as a whole. Greater coherence and consistency are needed in terms of security requirements and standards, with increased collaboration across the vast number of actors in the global ecosystem.
In recent years, the number of internet-connected systems and devices has grown significantly. The smartphones, wearables and smart-home devices of individuals are improving the user experience. Industry has begun to exploit the opportunities that data-sensing, mobile communications and increasing automation in control systems bring to derive efficiency and new service opportunities. The scale of digitization is bringing about ubiquitous connectivity, with a rapid acceleration in the scale, pace and complexity of the resulting systems – often referred to as the internet of things (IoT).
A core component of this emerging communications and computational environment is the 5G technology that will enable significantly faster and more reliable mobile communications for a substantially greater number of devices. Associated shifts in communications and analytics architectures (network virtualization, slicing and seamless roaming, and edge computing) promise agile and tailored networks with unparalleled computational power and analytics supported by the cloud. Such technologies are being piloted and rolled out across the world.
These developments create the opportunity to use communications and data analysis to more efficiently and reliably monitor and control previously unconnected critical systems in the physical world. Organizations are changing their operational model, and becoming increasingly dependent on connectivity as telemetry and insights are used to drive decision- making and physical control, creating efficiency and effectiveness gains. New products (e.g. connected autonomous vehicles)19 and services are emerging based on predictive and real-time decision support. This will make possible the delivery of global strategic initiatives to address some of the world’s most pressing economic challenges.
As a result, the role of wireless connectivity in economies and across societies is growing.
It is becoming possible to support a range of transformative personal, societal and industrial use cases. Industry leaders are adapting to derive value from the emerging networking technologies. The relationship between different elements of the supply chain is changing.
Participation in the connected ecosystem is becoming imperative as maintaining standalone approaches becomes uneconomical for organizations. This is resulting in some fundamental changes to industry, which will be accelerated as the technologies mature and adoption becomes increasingly widespread in the near future. Taken to their logical conclusion, the developments taking place now will end in ubiquitous connectivity, where devices, networks and services are hyperconnected and interdependent, operating on sophisticated shared infrastructures and relied on to support critical functions across society and industry.
Systemic risk
The evolution towards ubiquitous connectivity is creating new business models and introducing systemic cybersecurity risk. Key features of hyperconnected environments are already beginning to have significant impacts on the risks faced, which will be accelerated as the technologies mature and adoption becomes more widespread in the near future.
Scale and criticality
The sheer scale of the connected ecosystem means that the potential attack surface is expanding rapidly. As previously unconnected systems become connected to each other and to the internet, there is an increased risk to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of digital assets – whether it’s data, information, algorithms or digital services. The potential implications in terms of compromise for industry and society are becoming more severe.For example, safety-critical functionalities including intelligent transport systems and surgical procedures in healthcare are set to become increasingly reliant on the integrity and availability of communications, with compromise threatening human safety and potentially even leading to loss of life.
Interdependency
A range of new entangled relationships between actors in the digital ecosystem is evolving. The emergence of new products and growth of new service-based models is creating complex interdependencies between organizations, supply chains, sectors and individuals. This interdependency creates a risk of unforeseen cascade effects: Incidents occurring in one part of the ecosystem could harm those actors and systems dependent on it. Imbalance in perceptions of risk could lead to situations where high-value business assets are connected to third-party systems whose owners assess them to be low risk and that therefore do not have the appropriate levels of protection.
A failure to maintain the visibility and assign the accountability that is needed to assure end-to-end processes across multiple parts of the ecosystem could lead to gaps in security and heightened risk.
Shared resources
Many entities are sharing a growing dependence on a concentrated underpinning infrastructure and set of shared services, including cloud, internet service providers, hardware, software and the equipment supply chain. This creates an attack surface of high-value shared resources with a
high probability of attack, and the potential for compromise to have severe and systemic impacts. The homogeneity of the shared technology infrastructure that results from its being delivered by a small pool of providers may result in systemic risk, as the exploitation of a vulnerability found in a widely used resource could affect vast swathes of the ecosystem. Similarly, there is a risk of collateral damage occurring as a result of targeted attacks against a single client via this shared infrastructure. Identifying the critical shared resources, who owns them and their key dependencies is a complex task.