The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken our economies and societies to the core,
and shown us how vulnerable we are to biological threats.
In the digital world, similar risks are being overlooked right now.
A cyber attack with COVID-like characteristics
would spread faster and further than any biological virus.
Its reproductive rate would be around 10 times greater than what we've experienced with the coronavirus.
To give you an idea, one of the fastest worms in history, the 2003 slamma sapphire worm,
doubled in size approximately every 8.5 seconds, infecting over 75,000 devices in 10 minutes
and almost 11 million devices in 24 hours. Fortunately, at least until now,
Cyber attacks have not impacted our health the way pandemics have, but the economic damages and therefore the impact they have had on our daily lives have been equal and sometimes even greater.
You see, the only way to stop the exponential propagation of a COVID-like cyber threat is to fully disconnect the millions of vulnerable devices from one another and from the internet.
All of this in a matter of days.
A single day without the internet would cost our economies more than you.
50 billion US dollars, and that's before considering the economic and societal damages
should these devices be linked to essential services such as transport or healthcare.
As the digital realm increasingly merges with our physical world, the ripple effects of
cyber attacks on our safety just keep on expanding and growing.
at a faster pace than what we're preparing for.
COVID-19 was known as an anticipated risk.
So is the digital equivalent.
Let's be better prepared for that one.
The time is now.