Mapping the Cyberbiosecurity Enterprise

“Cyberbiosecurity” has been proposed as an emerging hybridized discipline at the interface of cybersecurity, cyber-physical security and biosecurity. This term has been defined as “understanding the vulnerabilities to unwanted surveillance, intrusions, and malicious and harmful activities which can occur within or at the interfaces of comingled life and medical sciences, cyber, cyber-physical, supply chain and infrastructure systems, and developing and instituting measures to prevent, protect against, mitigate, investigate and attribute such threats as it pertains to security, competitiveness and resilience.” Mapping the topology of cyberbiosecurity has just begun, but proponents have realized that, potentially, it has expansive applications across the life sciences, biomedical sciences and medicine, agriculture and food systems and natural resource protection and management, and from genomics, bioinformatics and “AI”, to large-scale complex systems such as “farm to table”. As biotechnologies continue to advance and evolve, cyberbiosecurity will be a key consideration in critical infrastructure related to these arenas. In addition to identifying or developing and implementing solutions to vulnerabilities and shortfalls, awareness and training, guidelines and standards and the interfacing of disparate expert communities awaits. Further, the interfaces with or creation of national strategies, policies, regulations and the legal implications need investigation and resolution.

With this Research Topic we aim to collect relevant articles which characterize various aspects of cyberbiosecurity. Target categories for the Research Topic will include science and technology, risk analysis, training and education, guidelines and standards, community fusion, and strategy and policy.