These articles focus on building and strengthening trust in usage of digital platforms and services among people, governments, and businesses by strengthening data privacy protections, raising cyber awareness, and building capacity to protect critical infrastructure and systems from cyber threats.
How COVID-19 Has Exposed Cyber Risks in the Health Sector
For developing countries the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need to prioritize building cybersecurity capacity within the health sector, and represents a rare opportunity to establish cybersecurity more broadly as a core element of the 21st Century’s development agenda. This article presents the latest cyber risks for the health sector that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and new approaches needed for building cybersecurity resilience. Following a brief explanation of the most common threat categories observed during the pandemic, the top five targets for cyberattacks are highlighted which include hospitals and healthcare centers, public health organizations, vaccine companies and virus research institutions, individuals, and contact tracing apps. In addition to operational solutions, the article presents three emerging themes that have manifested during the COVID-19, and implications for future operational solutions and coordination on building cybersecurity resilience.