Opinion | Cyber resilience in the time of Covid-19 and beyond
- Cyber resilience is a whole-of-society agenda that goes beyond just protecting critical information infrastructure
- Resources and avenues for individuals and civil society organisations to perform the duty of active cyber resilience agents are limited
The novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is not only a global health challenge. It has had cascading impacts across many sectors of society, including the economy, education, governance, and cultural sectors.
One of the sectors that has seen a significant impact is the cyber sector. With the increasing reliance on information and communication technologies (ICTs) for communication and telecommuting, due to the containment measures that have been adopted across the world, there has also been an increase in adverse cyber incidents.
These incidents are not only affecting governments and businesses, but also individuals and communities. Among the Covid-19-related cyber incidents detrimental to individual citizens that have materialised in countries across the globe are:
- Disinformation, misinformation and fake news around Covid-19 – the Covid-19 infodemic.
There are concerted grass roots and state-led efforts around the world that are exploiting social media to shape the narrative around the Covid-19 pandemic. Citizens are not only the end victims of these falsehoods; they are also inadvertently complicit by forwarding messages without fact-checking.
