When cyber warfare encroaches on biological warfare

One of the most striking lessons from the Covid crisis, which has been hitting the world for more than two years, is probably not the vulnerability of human societies to the appearance of a new pathogen, a subject that has been documented for many years. years. On the other hand, this crisis highlighted the immense dependence of Western societies on their health system, and on the adherence of citizens to this system. Thus, it was never the incidence rate, yet the alpha and omega of epidemiology, any more than the number of deaths, which were at the heart of political decisions in Europe and the United States to stem the effects of the pandemic, but indeed the occupancy rate of hospital beds, such as the saturation rates of emergency and resuscitation services, which were the main indicators governing the political decision, the latter having moreover made it possible to implement regionalized strategies.

In order to respond to the growing costs of public health policies in Western countries, with an increasingly aging population and with a growing dependence on health services, the vast majority of them have applied solutions based on digital approaches, to optimize the medical response vis-à-vis a given patient so as to avoid unnecessary redundancies and increase the relevance and effectiveness of the medical offer. Beyond this aspect, in many countries, including France, the effects during the Covid crisis of media campaigns and on social networks, partly launched and/or relayed by media under the control of external powers, were at the fore. origin of a real resistance of a part of the population towards the vaccines and the solutions proposed by the governments, this having led to a still badly evaluated, but more than significant number of excess mortality.

In both cases, there is a direct interconnection between the digital environment and the public health capacities of Western countries, leading to very real threats to the economic activity and social stability of nations. It is precisely about this threat that 3 American researchers have sounded the alarm, highlighting scenarios that are as catastrophic as they are probable if a potential adversary were to target the healthcare system through cyber action as the link between this system and public opinion. For scientists, the health system today constitutes nothing other than one of the greatest vulnerabilities of Western societies for a determined adversary with certain means. Furthermore, as the tremendous increase in cyberattacks on medical information systems during the Covid Crisis has shown, which had tripled in the United States, the more the medical system is under stress, the more it is potentially exposed to this type of attack. of attack.

The rest of this article is for subscribers only

The Classic subscriptions provide access to
all articles without advertising, starting at € 1,99.

Newsletter subscription