How can we build a more secure digital future?

Cyber-attacks and data-breaches are escalating, attackers are employing all manner of sophisticated tools, AI is transforming the ‘arms race’ for both attackers and defenders. We see the headlines, but is this a future we have to accept? What are the pathways to a more secure digital future?

I asked Bruce Schneier, the biggest name in cybersecurity.

Bruce is a DEEP thinker. He’s been researching and writing prolifically on cybersecurity since 1998, has authored more than 12 books, is a Fellow and lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy school and a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and is also Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt, a data-security venture co-founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.

Who better to shed light on pathways forward?

What I like best about him is this: he thinks about cybersecurity as the product of social, political, economic AND technical factors. He's a realist. Added to which, he has a wonderful turn of phrase: his razor-sharp one-liners slice right to the heart of an issue.

We discussed incentives, why government intervention is crucial for correcting market failures, IoT laws, the benefits of data decentralization and compartmentalization, disrupting cryptocurrencies to disrupt ransomware, treating superfluous data as a toxic asset, the unknowns of the post-quantum world, the need for crypto-agility, the benefits of zero trust authentication and more. I know you will enjoy his insights!

As always, you'll find my personal takeaways, links to some of Bruce’s related blog posts so you can take a deeper dive, and a full transcript of our conversation on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.