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41. Lessons Learned and Evolving Practices of the TIBER Framework for Resilience Testing in the Netherlands

Author:
Petra Hielkema and Raymond Kleijmeer
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Financial institutions face an evolving threat landscape with a wide range of hostile actors targeting them. Regulators and consumers reasonably expect the institutions to make themselves more secure. The question then emerges as to whether financial institutions are complying with the different standards, rules, and regulations regarding their security. International standard-setting bodies have recognized the need to raise the bar higher for the resilience of financial institutions. The publication of the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures-International Organization of Securities Commissions (CPMI-IOSCO) guidance on cyber resilience in June 2016 has been pivotal in emphasizing the need to have an integrated approach for financial market infrastructures, with the institution’s board being ultimately responsible and accountable for cyber resilience.1 Increasingly, authorities and financial institutions alike recognize that, in addition to assessing the overall resilience posture of a financial institution against sophisticated attacks, it will be important to actually test this posture. The CPMI-IOSCO guidance includes a chapter dedicated to testing, containing several examples of activities to that end. Recently, frameworks for testing the resilience posture of institutions in practice have been developed internationally.
Topic:
Markets, Science and Technology, Finance, and Resilience
Political Geography:
Europe, Netherlands, and Global Focus

42. Opportunities and Challenges of Emerging Technologies for the Refugee System

Author:
Raya Pakzad
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Efforts are being made to use information and communications technologies to improve accountability in providing refugee aid. However, there remains a pressing need for increased accountability and transparency when designing and deploying humanitarian technologies. This paper outlines the challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies, such as machine learning and blockchain, in the refugee system. The paper concludes by recommending the creation of quantifiable metrics for sharing information across both public and private initiatives; the creation of the equivalent of a “Hippocratic oath” for technologists working in the humanitarian field; the development of predictive early-warning systems for human rights abuses; and greater accountability among funders and technologists to ensure the sustainability and real-world value of humanitarian apps and other digital platforms.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Refugee Issues, Digital Economy, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

43. Patching Our Digital Future Is Unsustainable and Dangerous

Author:
Melissa Hathaway
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
In recent years, the world has witnessed an alarming number of high-profile cyber incidents, harmful information and communications technology (ICT) practices, and internationally wrongful acts through the misuse of ICTs. Over the last 30 years, a unique and strategic vulnerability has been brought to society — by allowing poorly coded or engineered, commercial-off-the-shelf products to permeate and power every aspect of our connected society. These products and services are prepackaged with exploitable weaknesses and have become the soft underbelly of government systems, critical infrastructures and services, as well as business and household operations. The resulting global cyber insecurity poses an increasing risk to public health, safety and prosperity. It is critical to become much more strategic about how new digital technologies are designed and deployed, and hold manufacturers of these technologies accountable for the digital security and safety of their products. The technology industry has fielded vulnerable products quickly — now, it is crucial to work together to reduce the risks created and heal our digital environment as fast as society can.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, Digital Economy, and Surveillance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

44. The Role of Technology in Addressing the Global Migration Crisis

Author:
Jonathan Kent
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The World Refugee Council and the Aspen Ministers Forum co-hosted this working meeting to explore the integration of technology into the governance and lives of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). One of the first of its kind, this multi-stakeholder event brought together representatives from the private sector and civil society as well as researchers and former political leaders to explore the challenges and opportunities in the use of technology and its potential to transform the global refugee system. This workshop’s participants discussed technology’s potential to mobilize political will and increase accountability, facilitate greater responsibility sharing, assist in mobilizing new funding sources and improve the efficiency of existing ones, as well as technology’s risks to the refugee system and individuals and how the risks can be mitigated. They also discussed how refugees and IDPs can be included in the development of these technologies and how major technological communities and hubs can transform themselves to reflect the diversity of these populations. Creating a foundation of shared understandings about how technology fits into the refugee and IDP field is the first step toward designing a more strategic and long-term vision.
Topic:
Migration, Science and Technology, Refugee Issues, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

45. Land Combat Vehicles: Protection Must Come First

Author:
Maxi Y. Blum
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies (BESA)
Abstract:
For decades, western armies have been working on developing a land-combat vehicle that would address the changing nature of warfare — notably fighting in densely populated urban and rural terrains — and new operational threats like mines, side bombs, and short-range rockets for purposes of ambush. But attempts to circumvent the use of expensive heavy armor by harnessing advanced sensory-fire and mobility technologies to neutralize potential threats before their actualization has been far from successful, leaving ground forces vulnerable and exposed. Development of a new land-combat vehicle will thus necessitate a highly inventive engineering and technological approach that slashes costs and weight of protective armor without compromising its effectiveness.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Military Affairs, and Weapons
Political Geography:
Israel and Global Focus

46. Future Space Controls and the Invisible Hand

Author:
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:
The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) and the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security (SCOLNS) held a law and policy workshop on Thursday, June 20, 2019. The workshop was the second collaboration between NPEC and SCOLNS, and it concerned the legal and policy issues that are emergin as space becomes increasingly commercialized and accesible. As the emerging space domain presents new challenges and opportunities, it is the hope of SCOLNS and NPEC that this report will guide future legal and policy decisions. The workshop sought to address a series of questions regarding national security challenges in space: Commercial Space: What will be profitable and when? Future Undesirable Space Conjunctions: Who is and should be liable? Insuring Against Unwanted Space Conjunctions: What new norms, regulations, laws, and understanding might be desirable? The workshop was comprised of experts from NPEC, SCOLNS, the U.S. Air Force, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Commece, the Department of States, nonprofits, think tanks, academia, and private companies and individuals. The discussion was governed under Chatham House rules, and therefore ideas and group affiliations from the workshop were not attributed to specific individuals.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Law, Space, Public Sector, Norms, and Private Sector
Political Geography:
Global Focus

47. The Rise of Global Innovation by US Multinationals Poses Risks and Opportunities

Author:
Lee G. Branstetter, Britta Glennon, and J. Bradford Jensen
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
For decades, US multinational corporations (MNCs) conducted nearly all their research and development (R&D) within the United States. Their focus on R&D at home helped establish the United States as the unrivaled leader of innovation and technology advances in the world economy. Since the late 1990s, however, the amount of R&D conducted overseas by US MNCs has grown nearly fourfold and its geographic distribution has expanded from a few advanced industrial countries to many parts of the developing world, creating an innovation system that spans the globe. Like many aspects of globalization, including the offshoring of manufacturing over recent decades, the globalization of R&D raises concerns about US competitiveness and loss of technological leadership. At the same time, the spreading geographic location of innovation presents opportunities for US-based companies if the right policies are adopted to seize them. The research presented in this Policy Brief demonstrates that US innovators continue to remain involved in important ways in US MNCs' global R&D activities, and fears of a hollowing out of US capacity to innovate—based probably on previous fears about the hollowing out of US-based manufacturing—may be overstated. Indeed, the large and growing pool of highly educated scientists and engineers in the developing world could increase the rate of global productivity growth, to the advantage of US-based companies and the world in general. The authors conclude that a productive way to capitalize on the globalization of MNC R&D is not to oppose it but to combine emerging-market talent with MNC experience so that innovation can flourish to improve global living standards and fuel economic progress.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Science and Technology, Multinational Corporations, Risk, and Private Sector
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

48. Opening Internet Monopolies to Competition with Data Sharing Mandates

Author:
Claudia Biancotti and Paolo Ciocca
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Over the past few years, it has become apparent that a small number of technology companies have assembled detailed datasets on the characteristics, preferences, and behavior of billions of individuals. This concentration of data is at the root of a worrying power imbalance between dominant internet firms and the rest of society, reflecting negatively on collective security, consumer rights, and competition. Introducing data sharing mandates, or requirements for market leaders to share user data with other firms and academia, would have a positive effect on competition. As data are a key input for artificial intelligence (AI), more widely available information would help spread the benefits of AI through the economy. On the other hand, data sharing could worsen existing risks to consumer privacy and collective security. Policymakers intending to implement a data sharing mandate should carefully evaluate this tradeoff.
Topic:
Security, Government, Science and Technology, Privacy, Internet, Monopoly, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
Global Focus

49. Will Outer Space Be Weaponized?

Author:
Miroslav Tuma
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Institute of International Relations Prague
Abstract:
This essay discusses the main elements of the American security document called the Missile Defense Review 2019, which was presented by the US Ministry of Defense in January 2019. It covers the possible reasons for the postponed publication of the document and informs about the main legal documents dealing with the peaceful use of space. It compares the current document with the similar one from 2010, which was published by the Obama administration. It also focuses on the possibility of the deployment of US spacebased interceptors in the Earth’s orbit. In this context it analyses the possible negative consequences of such a development, especially that it could lead to the beginning of a phase of a high risk weaponization of outer space and the start of an arms race in that domain.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Weapons, and Space
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

50. Re-thinking Biological Arms Control for the 21st Century

Author:
Filippa Lentzos
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
International treaties prohibit the development and use of biological weapons. Yet concerns about these weapons have endured and are now escalating. It is high time to take a hard look at technical and political developments and consider how the international security policy community should respond. ​ A major source of the growing concern about future bioweapons threats stem from scientific and technical advances. Innovations in biotechnology are expanding the toolbox to modify genes and organisms at a staggering pace, making it easier to produce increasingly dangerous pathogens. Disease-causing organisms can now be modified to increase their virulence, expand their host range, increase their transmissibility, or enhance their resistance to therapeutic interventions.[1] Scientific advances are also making it theoretically possible to create entirely novel biological weapons,[2] by synthetically creating known or extinct pathogens or entirely new pathogens.[3] Scientists could potentially enlarge the target of bioweapons from the immune system to the nervous system,[4] genome, or microbiome,[5] or they could weaponize ‘gene drives’ that would rapidly and cheaply spread harmful genes through animal and plant populations.[6] ​ Concurrent developments in other emerging technologies are also impacting potential future biological weapons threats. Developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning could speed up identification of harmful genes or DNA sequences. Artificial intelligence and machine learning could also potentially enable much more targeted biological weapons that would harm specific individuals or groups of individuals based on their genes, prior exposure to vaccines, or known vulnerabilities in their immune system.[7] Big Data and ‘cloud labs’ (completely robotized laboratories for hire) facilitate this process by enabling massively scaled-up experimentation and testing, significantly shortening ‘design-test-build’ timeframes and improving the likelihood of obtaining specificity or producing desired biological functionality.[8] Other developments provide new or easier ways to deliver pathogens or biological systems. Nanotechnology could potentially create aerosolized nanobots dispersing lethal synthetic microbes or chem-bio hybrids through the air,[9] or in vivo nanobots releasing damaging payloads inside human bodies.[10] Aerosol or spraying devices attached to swarms of small unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, could be another potential means to disperse biological agents. Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, could circumvent barriers imposed by national export control systems on controlled laboratory equipment or dispersal devices. ​
Topic:
Security, Health, Science and Technology, Treaties and Agreements, Biosecurity, and Weapons
Political Geography:
Global Focus