"Emerging technology and systemic risk – maintaining a secure and resilient digital infrastructure as we build back better" with Sadie Creese, Jamie Saunders & Charles Godfray

12 March 2021

Portrait of Professor Sadie Creese

with Professor Sadie Creese
Professor of Cybersecurity

Sadie Creese is Professor of Cybersecurity in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford. She is Co-Director of Oxford’s Cyber Security Centre, Director of the Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre at the Oxford Martin School, and...

Portrait of Professor Sir Charles Godfray

with Professor Sir Charles Godfray
Director, Oxford Martin School

Professor Charles Godfray was appointed Director of the Oxford Martin School on 1 February 2018. He is a population biologist with broad interests in the environmental sciences and has published in fundamental and applied areas of ecology, evolution...

The pandemic has accelerated digitisation across many sectors of the economy and society.

It is hard to imagine how many countries could have implemented lockdown measures to control the virus without the availability of digital technology to maintain at least a degree of economic and social activity. This technology has been remarkably resilient in the face of the increased demand. While there has been a perceptible increase in criminal activity seeking to exploit our increased dependence on IT during the pandemic, overall our systems and networks have held up well. This provides some confidence that the significant investment that government and business have made in operational resilience and cybersecurity over the past 10 years have paid off. However, future technology will bring a digital world of increased complexity, pace, scale and interdependence that will overwhelm many of the risk mitigations that are currently deployed. Without interventions now, it will be difficult to maintain the integrity of and trust in the technology on which we increasingly depend.

How confident can we be that the technology will prove equally resilient and secure in the event of a future major shock? In particular, is our collective approach to managing cyber risks sustainable in the face of the major technology trends taking place in the near future?

Join Professor Sadie Creese and Dr Jamie Saunders, Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre (GCSCC), as they discuss this with Professor Sir Charles Godfray and the steps that need to be taken by technologists, businesses, government and the international community to ensure that our digital infrastructure can continue to provide the level of resilience and security we need.