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What Biosecurity and Cybersecurity Research Have in Common

Biosecurity and cybersecurity research share an unusual predicament: Efforts to predict and defend against emerging threats often expose and create vulnerabilities. For example, scientists must first learn how to isolate and grow a pathogen before they can develop a new vaccine. Similarly, researchers must first learn how to break into a computer system in order to defend it.

In the wrong hands, both types of knowledge can be used to develop a weapon instead of a vaccine or a patch. The genetic tools and exploit software that enable these activities are becoming easier to use and to acquire, prompting security experts to ask one question with growing urgency: How can we protect against…

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Featured

 Biosecurity Is National Security

If a cyberattack upended the global economy, effectively shut down major cities like New York, and put millions of lives at risk, governments and institutions worldwide would undoubtedly respond by investing heavily in defensive capabilities. They would beef up their cybersecurity, install new safeguards, and collect data and intelligence on future threats – just as many already do in response to acts of cyber warfare. When it comes to the equally disruptive COVID-19 pandemic, however, the response has been far less decisive.

 Jaime Yassif on the need for better safeguarding of bioscience

An expert says bad-faith actors can too easily get hold of dangerous biotechnology.

Articles of Interest

Better World Biohazard Programs Are a Must

Security is a critical component of biosafety. There are very few national programs for regulating the biosafety and security of laboratories possessing and using highly infectious disease agents.

Biosecurity in an age of open science

The risk of accidental or deliberate misuse of biological research is increasing as biotechnology advances. As open science becomes widespread, we must consider its impact on those risks and develop solutions that ensure security while facilitating scientific progress.

Future Directions for Biosecurity

Biological warfare and bioterrorism are multifaceted problems requiring multifaceted solutions. Fortunately, the same advances in genomic biotechnologies that can be used to create bioweapons can also be used to set up countermeasures against them.

Regardless of COVID-19’s origins, experts say it’s time to tighten up biosecurity lab protocols

BSL-4 labs are somewhat risky, and they're not very well managed.

Researchers carefully protect dangerous pathogens – but how secure are all their data?

Understanding of the threats unique to the academic and research environment is still evolving. There’s very poor communication between the scientific community, the security community and the information technology community.

The Blessing and Curse of Biotechnology: A Primer on Biosafety and Biosecurity

Biotechnology has unlocked vast potential for improving human life, but the risks it poses mean that multilateral safeguards are due for an update.

The COVID-19 lab leak theory highlights a glaring lack of global biosecurity regulation

The United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity puts the onus on individual countries to regulate their own biotech industries. While there are protocols for the safe handling and transfer of living modified organisms, there are still no agreed international standards governing laboratory safety, monitoring and information sharing.

When Biosecurity Is the Mission, the Bioeconomy Must Become Government’s Strategic Partner

Biosecurity—protecting humans, animals, and plants from biological threats—is an essential government mission, the importance of which has been dramatically highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Why some labs work on making viruses deadlier — and why they should stop

The pandemic should make us question the value of gain-of-function research.

Resources

Why experts are terrified of a human-made pandemic — and what we can do to stop it

As biology gets better, biosecurity gets harder. Here’s what the world can do to prepare.