Conclusion

Abstract

Cyberspace offers immense benefits and opportunities as well as considerable threats and hazards. It is routinely exploited by a variety of adversaries, aggressors, and predators: hostile states; political extremists and terrorists; businesses practising commercial espionage and theft; individuals and criminal organizations undertaking financial fraud and trafficking in people, armaments, and narcotics; and individual so-called ‘nuisance’ hackers. The efficient and effective response to these threats and hazards is what cybersecurity is all about. The idea that cybersecurity could also have a larger, more comprehensive, and progressive goal might seem to some to be fanciful: an unrealistic and other-worldly response to the very real possibility of encountering substantial harm in and from cyberspace. Yet, the threat/response dynamic, compelling though it is, is surely not all there is to say about cybersecurity: it should be possible for cybersecurity to have a larger goal than the endless pursuit of (defensive) advantage over an adversary. If cyberspace can be valued as much as feared, then the broader purpose of cybersecurity could be not only to disable threats as they arise but also to enable the positive opportunities offered by the information revolution. Cybersecurity must also address the ordering (i.e. safety, security, and governance) of nothing less than a global digital ecosystem that is taking shape rapidly and beneficially, at every level and in every field of human activity. It is both possible and necessary to combine both perspectives—protection from and progress towards—in one account, as this Handbook of Cybersecurity has shown.