Davos elites fear large-scale cyberattacks, war

Bloomberg

The threat of large-scale cyberattacks and a “deteriorating geopolitical landscape” since the election of US President Donald Trump have jumped to the top of the global elite’s list of concerns, the World Economic Forum said ahead of its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
The growing cyber-dependency of governments and companies, and the associated risks of hacking by criminals or hostile states, has replaced social polarization as a main threat to stability over the next decade, according to the WEF’s yearly asses- sment of global risks, published at Bloomberg LP’s new European headquarters in London. The Davos forum starts January 23 in the Swiss ski resort.
While the economic outlook has improved, nine in 10 of those surveyed said they expect political or trade clashes between major powers to worsen. Some 80 percent saw an increased chance of war. “Cybersecurity is the issue most on the minds of boards and executives, given the visibility of state-sponsored attacks in an environment of increasing geopolitical friction,” John Drzik, president of global risk at Marsh USA Inc., which contributed to the study, said in an interview. “Businesses are increasingly dependent on technology and are aware that the openings hackers have are growing. As they invest
in things like artificial intelligence, they are widening their attack surface.”
Drzik said recent high-profile security breaches that have fuelled this perception include the WannaCry ransomware attack, which infected more than 300,000 computers across 150 countries, and NotPetya, which caused two companies losses in excess of $300 million. The cost of cyber-crime to firms over the next five years could reach $8 trillion, the WEF said. Similarly, thousands of attacks every month on critical infrastructure from European aviation systems to US nuclear power stations show state-sponsored hackers are attem- pting to “trigger a breakdown in the systems that keep societies functioning,” the WEF said.
In the preview, which would suggest Davos attendees are in for one of the bleaker forums in recent memory, almost two-thirds of global leaders saw risks intensifying from 2017. Climate change and extreme weather remained the greatest concerns of those surveyed. Economic worries receded as a unified pickup in growth and stocks at record highs suggest the world may finally be recovering from the financial crisis, a decade on.
Donald Trump’s appearance at the WEF’s annual meeting — the first for a sitting US president since Bill Clinton in 2000 — is sure to dominate proceedings, as well as ruffle feathers. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has said Trump and his advisers will use the event to talk about the President’s “America First” agenda, arguing that an economy that’s good for the US is good for everyone else. However “America First” is interpreted, Marsh’s Drzik said “unilateral, protectionist policies and nationalism are another key risk” that Davos attendees have identified, and one that clashes with the WEF’s core philosophy.