critique discussion below
Today, I will be bringing my insightful analysis into explaining “why wealthy nations and developing nations should work together to improve cybersecurity for the globally connected networks referred to as “the Internet.” (Cooper, 2019).
“Cybersecurity is a very important topic in today’s society. It is increasingly important for government organizations given the increase and rise of the digital government, which is the concept of an open and available government transparent to the public through the Internet and other technologies. Therefore, it is important for nations from all backgrounds to work together to improve cybersecurity.
It is important for developing nations to have their own cybersecurity workforce for three major reasons: to protect developing infrastructure from zero-day vulnerabilities, to ensure the proper scalability of infrastructure, and to ensure public cybersecurity in a developing environment. Protecting developing infrastructure from zero-day vulnerabilities is important because this is where hackers have the most opportune time to develop threat actions (Larin et. Al., 2018). This is especially true in a developing country, where the resources to have top-shelf cybersecurity defenses are not present yet. This is where zero-day vulnerabilities have the opportunity thrive, being that they have not been detected or even thought of yet. Additionally, it is important to scale IT infrastructure in order to allow the country to grow and develop. Lastly, ensuring public cybersecurity early-on is important to ensure best practices and recommendations are adhered to at all times, making this a long-lasting habit for years to come.
It is also key for wealthy nations to help smaller ones, with three reasons being disgruntled nation-states, corruption of nation-states, and ultimately, potential nation-state ruin. Disgruntled nations can come about if wealthy nations simply allow poorer ones to fend on their own in terms of facing cybersecurity threats. This is extremely negative as these nations can go on and perform actions such as refusing to trade with a wealthy nation, or simply not interacting with it at all. Corruption of poorer nation-states is also harmful to the global cybersecurity and security scene at large, and when combined with a nation’s disgruntled nature, can have devastating effects on a global level. Lastly, nation-states can actually be ruined if their IT infrastructure is not properly defended, thus devastating all involved. This kind of inequality can hurt everyone on a global level, going so far as to affect things like economic downfall, pollution, and other global factors (New Internationalist, 2017).
Organizations such as the European Union’s Network Security Agency and the Commonwealth of Nation’s Chief Technology Officer help ensure best practices are formed and working groups are created to share cybersecurity knowledge among different nations (Attstrom et. Al, 2017). This is not unlike organizations such as the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center or the National Cyber Awareness System in America (Center for Internet Security, 2019), which have the goals of ensuring IT security and cybersecurity for all. Additionally, organizations like these help create a culture of cooperation between interested parties, ensuring everyone is vested to ensure cybersecurity defense for everyone.
Non-governmental organizations can also help grow international cybersecurity response. Private organizations have a lot of resources and innovative technologies in their sector, with some of these not being able to have been created by government organizations. These organizations can help cross national borders in order to ensure and enhance best practices and recommendations for cybersecurity incident response. They can also be an independent body to help audit governments, ensuring that governments are in compliance with cybersecurity defenses. Lastly, private organizations can also be paid to help developing nations grow their cybersecurity infrastructure, stepping in where other governments may be hesitant to do so due to security implications, political outlook, etc.
All in all, it is important for wealthy nations to help less fortunate ones to shore up their cybersecurity defenses. This is important because of the increasingly critical nature of the digital government, and protecting its IT infrastructure also means protecting the people that live under that government. “
I definitely learned a lot from this assignment. I did not know about any of these things before I began this assignment. I hope you all decide to say “Wow, great post Dana!” I really need these points. I think this has been a very in-depth analysis on this topic.
