Rafaela Prifti/
Cybersecurity was a major topic of discussion at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum. World leaders, trade, technology experts and others assembled at the Swiss Alps in Davos, Switzerland, to address a huge range of topics and challenges in the landscape of economic and geopolitical instability. This year at the Forum meetings, Cybersecurity made headlines in many ways. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cyber crime will grow from a $3 trillion industry in 2015 to $10.5 trillion by 2025. During a presentation on the findings of the Global Cybersecurity Outlook, Jürgen Stock, the Secretary-General of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), said: “This is a global threat, and it calls for a global response and enhanced and coordinated action.” Citing the Ukraine war as one of the exacerbating factors for global insecurity, experts predict an increase in sophistication and frequency of attacks constituting a possible “cyber storm”. Already, phishing, ransomware and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are reported to be on the rise.
While the report found that business leaders are far more aware of the cyber threat than the year prior, and 91% of respondents believe a catastrophic cyber event is at least somewhat likely in the next two years, the organizations continue to face significant challenges when it comes to effectively addressing cyber concerns.
Being unpredictable in nature, each cyber attack presents a potentially difficult task unlike any other. Jeremy Jurgens, Managing Director, World Economic Forum cited a cyberattack recently aimed at shutting down Ukranian military abilities that unexpectedly also shut off parts of electricity production across Europe.
The Forum drew attention to the governments’ support or direct involvement in disruptive cyber operations referring to countries like Russia and North Korea that have carried out and developed sophisticated attacks and nefarious cyber activities around the globe. Cybercriminals seek to exploit the particularly vulnerable sectors of critical infrastructure like energy, public transportation and manufacturing.
“The key to winning the battle against cybercrime is, of course, to work together to make it a priority across the geopolitical fault lines.” Jurgens pointed out that the increased profits that the multiple bad “actors” reap from cybercrime should encourage world leaders to work together to make it a priority as they face “new sophisticated tools.” He said that Albania, a target of a massive cyber attack, serves as a showcase of what could happen, and is now working with larger allies in warding off the criminals.
With the internet becoming even more widespread, the list of potential targets is only increasing. According to the 2023 report, today’s targets include not only government agencies or major corporations, but largely any organization that handles consumer data—no matter how small. In order to meet the challenge of a global threat, Davos Forum emphasized the need for “a global response and enhanced and coordinated action.”
From January 16 to 20, the message at the World Economic Forum was that “the global community faces a series of interlinked crises” which require global interlinked solutions. In the landscape of frequent threats and disruptive online operations, Cybersecurity defenses are also increasing in scope and sophistication. Part of it, is the so-called Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity, which creates a framework that eliminates implicit trust and ensures that any user, in or out of network, is authenticated and validated at every point.
A Book Promotion at Vatra Reinforces Similar Points – No Perfect Solutions
Only a few days after the Davos meeting, on January 25, at Vatra’s headquarters, the promotion event of Asllan Bushati’s book Diktati i ADM-ve në Luftën e Ftohtë e Pas Saj reinforced and echoed some of the highlights of the Davos Global Cybersecurity Outlook. The title loosely translated into English would be How WMD Ruled the Cold War Era and Onward. The book, that is evidently timely, is written in Albanian and has a preface by the author. A senior military commander in the Albanian army until 1997 including 14 years of service at Albania’s Ministry of Defense, Bushati was a graduate of the Academy and even wrote his PhD thesis on topics related to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). The next year he immigrated to the US where his principles guide his actions to benefit the community in his capacity as a former ranking military and, for a few years, as the Deputy Chairman of the Pan Albanian Federation Vatra. Bushati told Dielli that it was Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022 and Putin’s threats to use nuclear war that sparked the idea to write the book on the topic of WMD.
As with the discussions in Davos earlier in the month, the scale of the challenge, the sense of urgency and the importance of collaboration are the central points of Bushati’s work. Stretching from the Cold War to the so-called Transition Era (Star Wars) and Post Cold War, the book provides an overview of WMD, nuclear proliferation and arms race, biological and chemical weapons. Published by Vision Printing, Tiranë 2022, the softcover presentation highlights several important events and doctrines of nuclear war, the challenges of terrorism defense and Cybersecurity. In writing the book, Bushati has condescend his knowledge and military background, his experience and education in the Academy coupled with his skills in absorbing the news and the appropriate literature to conduct his own analysis in a style that is well written and easy to read despite the military terminology.
In a separate chapter on the topic of biological weaponry, the author argues convincingly that Serbia is a clear and present danger, given its past record of demonstrated lack of principals in terms of accessing its chemical arsenal against the Albanian civilian population as was the case in 1990, the Albanian school children in February 1991 and in 1992. Serbia’s military capabilities are a threat to the peace and security to Albanians in Kosova and in the region.
One area that has changed drastically the notions of warfare is Cybersecurity. Bushati drives home the point that our daily lives are directly affected by it from prescription drugs, health records to online identity. We are no longer bystanders as cyber attacks may target any organization that handles consumer data that can potentially put us at risk or dramatically change our lives. Believing that the past informs the future in terms of strategic approaches and military viewpoints, the author notes that the two are “interlinked”. Whether in trade, technology or security, the crises faced by the global community were described in Davos as “interlinked” – conveying in one word the common feature that the most pressing global topics share today.
The last chapter of Bushati’s book references the cyberattack on Albania’s government and state institutions carried out by actors associated with Iran constituting one example of nefarious cyber operations targeting other countries including United States, Germany, Estonia, United Kingdom, France, etc. Bushati told Dielli that Cyber Security is a long and ongoing battle. “For a long while, there will be no clear winners as no side can claim total victory,” he said, adding that “the next frontier of the cyber fight will be in space.”
Asllan Bushati’s book promotion was nearly coincidental with the 2023 Davos Forum and, to some extent, there are overlaps of examples and cases between the publication and the findings of the Global Cybersecurity Outlook. The overarching theme here is that a global threat needs a response of equal measure and size, which can only be effective as a collective effort. With reference to the world plagued by perfect storm on multiple fronts, Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary General, is his special address at Davos, said: “There are no perfect solutions in a perfect storm. But we can work to control the damage and to seize the opportunities available. Now more than ever, it’s time to forge the pathways to cooperation in our fragmented world.”