The Systemic Risk Of An Interconnected—And An IoT-Connected—Society | With Jen Ellis And Jonathan Welburn

A handful of "critical services" are used by pretty much every business these days: cloud, mobile, web/Internet, telecommunications, and other connected critical infrastructure. Many more capabilities that make companies operate rely on a handful of "shared services" that run on top of those vital services. If this starts to sounds like a house of cards, it is because it merely is; with the growing complexity level, its fragility increases exponentially.

For a relatively simple question such as "are we at risk for catastrophic failure?" there is no answer that is as equally simple—but thankfully, albeit complex, there is an answer. Worth noting, however, the answer affects anybody that is using connected technologies, which, these days, is the vast majority of the world's population.

Jonathan Welburn recently wrote an eye-opening piece about this subject on the Wall Street Journal that got our attention. At the RAND Corporation, Jonathan Welburn is a researcher that studies systemic risks and has a keen interest in cyber threats and systemic cyber risks. Also joining us for this conversation is Jen Ellis a Nonresident Fellow for Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, bringing the global perspective of the cyber threats and challenges we face today and well into the future.

The not-so-distant event of the 2008 financial crisis represents a similar scenario. Rather than having a bunch of banks that are too big to fail, we may have many companies providing critical services that have made our business infrastructure—and in turn, the economy—too interconnected to fail.

The systemic risk of a hyper-connected society is real and a little too close for comfort. The domino effect potential is also prevalent, but it doesn't have to be. If businesses, government, and supporting associations look at both internal risk and third-party risk and then collaborate to patch and prevent, we may be able to avoid a scenario where history repeats itself.

Come on, we are smarter than that. Are we? 

Guest(s)
Jen Ellis, Nonresident Fellow, Cyber Statecraft Initiative, Atlantic Council
[on Twitter @Infosecjen]

Jonathan Welburn, Researcher, RAND Corporation / Author Too Interconnected to Fail
[on Twitter @jwwelburn]

Resources
Too Interconnected to Fail article on WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/too-interconnected-to-fail-11595523324

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