Can we be safe?
Q4
What role does cybersecurity play in the current geopolitical context and how can countries secure their infrastructures?
Cyber tools definitely play an important role in the modern world which has become very connected and thus increasingly sensitive to cyberattacks. This obviously makes it easy for countries at war to use it as a means and cyber tools have become an important tool in the "war equipment set". Having said that, not everything is virtual, and wars continue to be physical. It is true though that there is a virtual world in parallel to the physical one which can lead to simultaneous multi-layer (physical and virtual) attacks, meaning that first a virtual attack is launched in order to start a smarter physical one. The other issue that one has to be mindful about is that cyber tools can be used as political influence tools and that attackers who have e.g. a political motivation, try to impose their political opinion on others (companies, individuals etc.). This is also how fake news are created and used to influence elections for example.
Q5
What advice would you give to companies who are reviewing their cyber security?
My advice would be simple: Always assume that attacks are coming and build your information and cyber usage with security in mind. That means that you need to design your information systems and critical infrastructure with security plugged in by design. Also assume that what you know now won't have anything to do with what you will know in two years' time, given that technology develops so fast. Updateability and pluggability are therefore must-have features. In short: This is not a static world, and your environment must be set up in a way that it is flexible to evolve within it.
“Always assume that attacks are coming...”
Dr. Dorit Dor
Chief Product Officer at Check Point Software Technologies