2023 cyberbiosecurity summit underscores challenges associated with cybersecurity and the rapidly growing bioeconomy

• Main Authors: Nicholas Guise (Author), David Pattie (Author), Kenneth B. Yeh (Author), Kemper Talley (Author), Rachel Fennell Fezzie (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group, 2024-12-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 10.1080/23779497.2024.2401164; 2377-9497
• Keywords: Artificial intelligence; bioeconomy; cyberbiosecurity; genomic sequencing; synthetic biology; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Military Science; U
• Source: Global Security: Health, Science and Policy, Vol 9, Iss 1 (2024)

The 2 November 2023 Cyberbiosecurity Summit at Georgia Tech Research Institute's (GTRI) headquarters in Atlanta united cybersecurity and biotechnology stakeholders to address safeguarding of bio-based industries. Goals included identifying cyberbiosecurity vulnerabilities and establishing prevention best practices for emerging biotech hardware, software, data and bio-based systems. The Summit highlighted risks and explored mitigation strategies for a safer bioeconomy. Key takeaways include: (1) as genome databases proliferate globally, it becomes more likely that these databases will become targets for cyberbiosecurity attacks; (2) the biotech community should not view cybersecurity as an impediment to research, but rather as a national security and global health imperative for proactive investment and workforce training; (3) the bioeconomy depends on a vulnerable supply chain for software; and (4) mapping of a biological attack surface, inspired by traditional cybersecurity assessments, would facilitate identification of vulnerabilities of cyber-bio-physical systems and the development of protective measures for the bioeconomy.