The cyber and biological scientific arenas are converging rapidly. While the government recognizes that the nation is vulnerable to cyber attacks and continues to invest enormous resources into their prevention, response, and recovery, it invests far less in countering biological attacks. These two areas of science and technology are beginning to converge now, making the nation increasingly unsafe and insecure.
On September 17, 2019, the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense convened a meeting, Cyberbio Convergence: Characterizing the Multiplicative Threat to inform our continuing assessment of the biological threat, specific vulnerabilities, and overwhelming consequences. Topics discussed at this meeting included:
- The convergence of cyber- and biological sciences;
- The vulnerability of pathogen and biomanufacturing data systems;
- Biological risk mitigation; and
- The vulnerability of intellectual property and the national and global bioeconomy.
Federal, academic, industry, and law enforcement experts shared their perspectives, experiences, challenges, and recommended solutions with regard to cyberbiosecurity, and talked about public and private sector responsibilities to protect the nation and ensure that the U.S. bioeconomy grows unimpeded.