Member-only story
A Tale Of Two Pandemics
What cybersecurity can learn from microbiology
A gloomy year
2020 will be remembered as a gloomy year. As fate would have it, the world suffered the worst viral and cyber pandemics in history simultaneously.
As the new COVID-19 started to kill millions of people across the world, a breach on IT firm SolarWinds (also known as Solorigate) started a supply-chain attack of an unprecedented magnitude, affecting thousands of organisations, including the Pentagon, the White House, the US army, US departments of Treasury, Commerce and Energy, IT giants like Microsoft, Cisco, Deloitte, Intel…
With both pandemics still ongoing, we don’t yet know the full extent of the damages. But we can look at the initial responses to both crises and start to learn from them.
Managing viral pandemics
Born in the 16th century with the theory of contagious diseases, microbiology witnessed a golden age in the late 1800s and early 1900s. For the next hundred years, scientists would use data, experiments and vaccines to successfully interrupt the unfolding of microorganisms, chains of contamination and epidemics.
“Chance only favours the prepared mind” — Louis Pasteur
When COVID-19 first made the news, scientists knew exactly what were the first measures to take to stop the chain of contaminations. Almost overnight travels were halted, borders were shut, social gatherings were restricted and half the world went into lockdown. People were asked to stay home, social distance, wear masks and wash hands.
From the early months, we saw that wherever rules were strictly enforced like in New Zealand, there was a successful decline in the epidemic. On the other hand, social gatherings were virus spreading grounds; some even turned into super-spreader events, as they started a new chain of infections carrying the virus to new clusters.
Managing cyber pandemics
Cybersecurity on the other hand is a young industry. The first computer virus was created in 1971. But in its short life-span, the world changed dramatically from using pen and paper to doing everything online. In the gold-rush years of going digital, accessibility became the imperative, often relegating…
