The digital infrastructure is no longer just a support system for the economy – it has become a condition for the state to function. If the network, data centers, or IT security systems fail, other sectors quickly feel the consequences, said Grzegorz Wawryniuk, Director of Product and Marketing at EXATEL, during the CYBERSEC EXPO&FORUM conference.
Until recently, critical infrastructure was discussed mainly in the context of energy, transport, fuel, water supply, or healthcare. Today, that list is incomplete without the digital layer. Moreover, the digital backbone of the state has become the element that ties all other sectors together. It is the glue that holds together transport, banking, energy – everything that makes a modern city function.
Building resilience, not just reacting
The nature of threats has changed. A cyberattack is no longer a matter for the IT department alone. A data center outage is not just a problem for one provider. In an economy where public services, business, and administration operate on a shared digital layer, an interruption in data transmission or cloud unavailability can cascade across entire sectors.
– Not long ago, a data center failure was mainly a business issue for the provider of such services. Today, with data and services migrating to the cloud, it no longer matters whether we are talking about private or public cloud. It still requires data transmission, data itself, and IT security – said Wawryniuk. – A failure of just one of these elements can trigger a domino effect. Services for citizens stop working: healthcare, digital services, communication. Entire cities can grind to a halt due to a failure of one of these ecosystems.
That is why the concept of state resilience must be understood differently now than a few years ago. It is not about repelling every attack – that is unrealistic. The key is maintaining operations despite an incident, rapidly restoring services, and limiting the impact of disruptions.
– We have moved from managing IT system security incidents to building institutional resilience – said Grzegorz Wawryniuk. – We cannot prevent incidents from happening. We cannot fully defend against them. But we should build all the necessary elements to be resilient to both physical and digital threats, and to restore continuity as quickly as possible.
Digital sovereignty and the need for control
The discussion about digital sovereignty often boils down to the idea that the state must produce every technology itself and have full control over the source code. According to Wawryniuk, that is a misconception. Sovereignty does not mean building everything from scratch – it means having control over the critical infrastructure that underpins the state’s functions.
– It does not mean the state should build all technologies and have control over them, have the code to the technology and software. Above all, the state should have control over the critical infrastructure, which is the data transmission networks and data centers – he said.
In practice, digital resilience means the ability to maintain key services despite a failure or attack. It is about redundancy in the most sensitive elements of infrastructure, the ability to quickly restore resources, and the competence of people who can design, maintain, and secure these solutions.
– The most important elements of infrastructure should have redundancy in order to maintain business continuity. That is the digital resilience that we, as a state and society, should be building – Wawryniuk emphasised.
Technology is available, but what is needed are specialists. Our country has the resources to build those competencies, he added.
Cooperation as the missing link
Finally, resilience requires operational cooperation, not just the kind written into strategies and presentations. It must be daily collaboration between telecom operators, energy companies, data center providers, technology firms, administration, and incident response teams. Without this, state resilience remains a slogan, not an actual capacity to act in a crisis.
– Such nationwide cooperation will make the state more resilient to threats – assessed Wawryniuk.
Cybersecurity cannot start at the moment of an attack. Incidents will happen. The real test is whether the state, cities, operators, and companies can maintain services, restore systems, and draw lessons before the next crisis hits harder.
Źródło: WNP.PL, Fot. WNP.PL
