Bibi van den Berg, professor Cybersecurity Governance

Case studies: Fukushima and the War in Syria

‘This programme starts with an introductory course, explaining the basics about safety and security and how theories, models and concepts regarding these notions have developed. This introductory course is followed by two case studies: Fukushima and the War in Syria. The first course focuses on what we call a ‘safety incident’: a disaster that came about through a chain of accidental causes. The second course focuses on a security case. War is an example of an intentional threat: in conflicts parties deliberately and consciously seek to harm other parties. I’m one of the two lecturers of the first introductory course about the basics and give some guest lectures about cyber risk in a second-year course.’

‘Cyber accidents’

‘One of the areas that my research focuses on is that of ‘cyber accidents’. Most of the research on cybersecurity seeks to understand intentional threats in cyberspace, for instance hacks or DDoS attacks. Much less research is done on the fact that systems and data can also come to harm accidentally, for instance when upgrading systems, or through power failures, or as a result of human errors. We keep a database that registers how often such things happen, so that we get a better understanding of the scope and the consequences of this kind of challenge.’

New security risks

‘Cyberspace has become the backbone of modern Western societies. For everything we do, we use digital networked technologies. While cyberspace makes our lives easier, more comfortable and more efficient, it also leads to new security risks. There are privacy issues, such losing one’s personal data, or oversharing information on social media. And there are security risks, such as hacking by criminals, or acts of cyberwarfare by nation states. The question has become: what should governments and organizations do to ensure that the internet we use is secure? Which laws, regulations, norms and standards should be developed to increase security in cyberspace? We are the only Cybersecurity Governance research group in the Netherlands.’

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