Applying Resilience to Hybrid Threats in Infrastructure, Digital, and Social Domains Using Multisectoral, Multidisciplinary, and Whole-of-Government Approach
Ashok Vaseashta
Abstract
Hybrid threats present one of the growing security challenges to the safe and effective management of critical infrastructure, digital systems, and social domains worldwide. The intentional misuse or disruption of such domains and digital technologies will have wide-ranging implications in various aspects of life, spanning from day-to-day activities, civil and military operations, transportation and aviation, communication, finance, and water-food-energy nexus, medical treatments to social media. Despite increasing concerns of evolving cyber threats within multiple domains, only a few strategies to effectively counter the spectrum of hybrid threats have emerged that simultaneously help organizations prevent disruptions, as well as to facilitate recovery and adaptations following such disruptions. Resiliency-based decision-making serves to offer a pathway that may guide policymakers and other key stakeholders to address these challenges by analyzing the nested interdependencies and social resilience of various digital systems. This article posits a multisectoral, multidisciplinary, local, state, and whole-of-government systems approach that conjoins hybrid threats to its social, infrastructural, and informational dependencies.