Description: Globally, requirements of cybersecurity and resilience of Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) have been well-established. However, there are also foundational digital infrastructure components, such as data centers and cloud services, which would have a systemic impact on a country’s economy and society if disrupted. In a prominent example, a data center outage affecting Citibank and DBS, the biggest bank in Singapore, disrupted 2.5 million payment and ATM transactions. While this had not resulted from a cyberattack, it had nonetheless resulted in widespread disruption of banking services. Governments around the world have started looking at this problem, beyond traditional CII regulations. In the UK, the government launched a public consultation in December 2023 on ways to enhance the security and resilience of UK data infrastructure, addressing resiliency risks including extreme weather and poor information-sharing and cooperation across industry. The Singapore government said it is studying the introduction of a Digital Infrastructure Act (DIA) in March 2024, going beyond cybersecurity to address a broader set of resilience risks ranging from misconfigurations in technical architecture, to physical hazards such as fires, water leaks, and cooling system failures. Conversations in this area are still nascent, and there is a chance for the IGF to shape best practices and common standards. Lessons can be drawn from the cybersecurity industry, where increasing sophistication of threats has shaped modern approaches to achieve cyber resilience. One possibility could be an expanded role for national Security Operations Centres (SOCs) to monitor this aspect. With a workshop comprising regulators and thought leaders from the industry and governments, we hope to brainstorm ideas that will culminate in a white paper that forms the baseline for Digital Public Infrastructure under the UNDP, to serve as reference material for countries which are planning for laws to enhance digital infrastructure resiliency.
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