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As technology grows more complex, the ways in which it can be misused rise. And as people rely more on technology in daily activities, they are increasingly subjected to unintended — even hostile — consequences. Add in a high level of automation — taking humans ‘out of the loop’ and making decisions at machine speed — and the possibility for things to go wrong rapidly escalates.
‘Hostile’ tech by our definition can encompass not just criminal tech such as malware and hacking tools, but also use cases like advertising and customer targeting. Whether a technology is hostile can be a matter of perspective. Some people don’t find internet advertising, tracking cookies or social media influencing campaigns intrusive, and are happy to trade their data for what they perceive as personalized offers or special value. Others install ad blocking software in their browsers and eschew Facebook completely. Consenting to tracking or the collection of personal data is for some basically automatic; for others, a carefully considered choice.
What’s more, not all hostile behavior is malicious or intended. One example is bias in algorithms or machine learning systems. These may exhibit hostile tendencies towards certain customer groups without ever having been compromised or deliberately designed that way. Signals of this shift include:
Protection against deliberate hacking and malware is increasingly important. Companies must invest in defending a wider range of touchpoints against well-funded and organized adversaries. Yet as the potential for danger rises, other dimensions of hostile tech also have to be considered. We believe that being respectful of customer wishes, avoiding ‘spooky’ targeting, and rooting out bias within algorithmic systems is not only inherently the right thing to do, but conducive to trust, positive public perceptions, and ultimately the health of the business.
According to IBM, the average global cost of a data breach in 2020 was US$3.86 million. In the first half of 2020 alone, European supervisory authorities issued fines totalling over €50 million for GDPR violations. With consumers placing a higher value on their privacy, robust privacy practices have become a strong differentiator for some companies. A recent survey by McKinsey found a clear majority of consumers will not do business with a company if they have concerns about its security practices, or believe it gives out sensitive data without permission.
In a seven-year partnership, we set out to help the UK government transform the way it interacted with and delivered public services to citizens, making trust and security a priority from the very beginning. The project united disparate government websites into a single robust and user-friendly platform, enhancing citizen experience and substantially accelerating deployment cycles. Importantly, the platform was backed by an online identification assurance system that allowed citizens to submit applications for services while meeting all necessary data protection requirements and respecting individuals’ privacy rights. Minimizing the potential for negative outcomes and fostering confidence in the platform encouraged its rapid adoption.
Secure software delivery. Treat delivery pipelines as the high-risk production systems that they are, since by design they are used to deploy software to your production environments. Understand security implications for data in-flight and at rest. Generate audit trails, and learn about and integrate anomaly detection solutions to help detect security incidents. Stay abreast of compliance laws that affect your region and the effect they have on your systems.
Modern AuthZ. A combination of increased cyber-threats and liability, coupled with decentralized microservices architecture, have stretched traditional authorization (AuthZ) solutions. With the boundaries of network perimeter trust fading, authorization based on network location loses its effectiveness. Consider adopting approaches like Zero Trust, BeyondCorp, BeyondProd, and Vectors of Trust to modernize your AuthZ processes and incorporate a broader spectrum of factors in authorization decisions.
Quantum computing. Quantum computing is a proven concept, but hasn’t scaled and may take a long time to approach maturity. Though the full scope of its potential applications is not yet clear, it bears close watching as there is a threat that the encryption of many systems, and indeed the entire internet, could be easily broken using quantum algorithms such as Shor’s.
… consider a wider range of negative implications than privacy and security breaches when developing and deploying customer-facing systems and products, and understand that robust action to minimize unintended ‘hostile’ outcomes can be a source of competitive advantage. For forward-looking companies, rather than a set of policies, security and ethics will be a practice evident in everything teams do.
