Five similarities between climate change and cyber security

Climate change and cyber security are the top threats to humans and businesses today. These two threats have a lot in common and the policies to govern one can work well for the other.

There are many parallels between the two realms. Here we take a look at the five common grounds.

• Everyone is affected: Like it or not, no individual is immune to changes that happen in the environment or to the cyber threats that are increasing every day. Climate change and cyber threats are now global phenomena, which affect people across geographies. Human beings have always depended on nature for everyday resources like water and energy. This dependence will continue forever. Similarly, our dependence on everything digital is increasing, which will only increase in the future.
• No limit to usage: Mother nature provides each of us with abundant natural resources without placing a limit on the amount one can potentially use. This has led to the exploitation of the natural resources to such an extent that some resources are on the verge of depletion. We use the internet in a similar manner with no limits. This has led to the exploitation of the resources available on the internet for criminal activities.
• No ownership, no accountability: While each one of us are using the natural resources, none of us really owns nature. Some of us may be more responsible for abusing nature than the others. But, since there is no ownership, it becomes difficult to identify individual culprits and hold them accountable. Likewise, the cyber space is open and available to everyone. Each of us can tap into its resources. But, it is a huge challenge to identify and hold individuals accountable for crimes perpetrated on the internet.
• Pollution: A lot is being said about increasing environmental pollution, with governments globally, announcing action on a war footing to curb the ill-effects of human effect on the environment. Similarly, the digital world has been polluted by ever-increasing incidents of cyber attacks, data breaches, and fraud.
• Outdated infrastructure: It might sound surprising but the service infrastructure affected by climate change and the infrastructure that supports cyber space are both outdated. Both these infrastructures were created much before the problems began to manifest; and therefore, are ill-equipped to handle the changing demands. For instance, the network protocols defined in the early internet era cannot handle the security concerns of today because they were not built that way. Similarly, the service infrastructure is now under tremendous stress due to rapid urbanization and increasing consumption.

Mitigation through collaboration

Both climate change and cyber security are real and fast-increasing threats that are expected to accelerate further in the coming decades. Both these pressing problems need a fresh approach to tackle the multi-dimensional disruptions they cause. Also, both these problems need co-operation between the private and public sectors to control and mitigate vulnerabilities. When collaborating, it will become easier to draw connections and links between the two and help organizations and governments gain insights, which will enable them to shape strategies to effectively prevent losses and mitigate disruption.

The article has been written by Neetu Katyal, Content and Marketing Consultant

She can be reached on LinkedIn.