The Aspen Cyber Summit is a unique gathering, bringing together top leaders from business, government, academia, and public interest to discuss urgent cyber threats and secure our digital society. The nonpartisan, high-level setting provides one of the most significant stages for discussions around cybersecurity policy, strategy, and operations. This annual event is produced and hosted by Aspen Digital, a program of the Aspen Institute.
As the global economy extends its embrace of digital technology, systemic cyber risk poses an increasing danger for society. Systemic disruptions of internet infrastructure, healthcare during a pandemic, energy infrastructure, and food supplies within just the past five years have triggered significant unease about the potential for loss of not just data or state secrets, but the critical operational systems that underlie real-world social functions. Growing reliance on Internet-connected technologies has created new and dynamic interdependencies that tie together the fortunes of various stakeholders within and across economic sectors. Yet outside of finance and insurance, leaders in government and industry have made little progress on a global, cross-sector dialogue to identify and control the most dangerous sources of cyber risk that allow adversaries to inflict damage at a regional, national, or international scale. With new cybersecurity leaders in place across the Biden Administration amid a newfound public awareness that individual cybersecurity incidents can affect us all, the 2021 Aspen Cyber Summit will kickstart a new global dialogue on systemic cyber risk.