Insights from WEF Annual Meeting on Cybersecurity | Fortinet Blog

Digital evolution and technological advancements like AI are ushering in a new era of cybercrime. As a result, threat actors are increasing the volume and velocity of the threats they deploy, forcing defenders to continually adjust their strategies to stay one step ahead.

As the saying goes, "There is strength in numbers." This is true when it comes to disrupting cybercrime. No single organization can make meaningful progress in this pursuit on its own. Collaboration is critical, and cultivating relationships across industries and borders lays the foundation for sharing information, enabling us all to outpace our adversaries.

Since the company's inception, Fortinet has worked with global experts across the public and private sectors with a shared goal of significantly disrupting cybercrime. For example, the company is a founding member of the World Economic Forum's Centre for Cybersecurity, a launch partner of its Cybercrime Atlas project (a joint initiative introduced by the organization's Partnership Against Cybercrime), and a contributor to the AI and Cyber Initiative, the Strategic Cybersecurity Talent Framework, and the Global CISO Community.

Prominent Discussion Themes From the 2024 Meeting

Last week, I attended the Forum's Annual Meeting on Cybersecurity in Geneva, Switzerland, which marks Fortinet's fifth year participating in this event. Over three days, nearly 200 of the world's foremost cybersecurity leaders from business, government, international entities, civil society, and academia came together to discuss ideas and advance collaborative efforts to make our digital world safer and more resilient for all.

I was pleased to facilitate a discussion about operational collaborations to disrupt cybercrime-"Better, Faster, Stronger: Disrupting Cybercrime Together"-and how to apply lessons learned from successful partnerships to further anti-adversary efforts.

During this conversation and others at the event, several themes emerged. As expected, AI was a prominent topic of discussion, with participants acknowledging that defenders are currently winning the AI arms race but that attackers are poised to outpace us if we do not use the technology strategically. Second, alliances and collaborative efforts are vital to disrupting cybercrime but must encompass more than just the sharing of information. And finally, the group identified unique ideas for disrupting the trust among prominent cybercrime organizations, acknowledging that dismantling threat actor communities themselves will have a substantial impact on the ecosystem.

Introducing a Collaboration Framework for Disrupting Cybercrime

At the event, the World Economic Forum Centre for Cybersecurity released a framework to support operational collaborations that disrupt cybercrime at scale. I am proud to have contributed to discussions that informed the white paper, which examines leading operational collaborations against cybercrime that exist today and details the common traits of effective partnerships. The findings are based on interviews and workshops with experts at the operational and leadership levels among anti-cybercrime operations in North America, South America, Europe, West Africa, Southern Africa, South Asia, and East Asia.

Articulating the "why" and "how" of today's operational efforts, this research highlights three core pillars of collaboration: incentives for organizations to collaborate (such as a clear mission and impact), elements of a good governance structure (such as flexible frameworks), and resources-ranging from technology and people to taxonomies and data normalization-required to set up, maintain, and accelerate partnerships. This framework is designed to serve as a starting point for organizations interested in tackling global cybercrime at scale and can be used as guidance to enhance existing collaborative operations.

Cybercrime Atlas Project: The Year in Review

The World Economic Forum recently published an impact report relating to its Cybercrime Atlas initiative, detailing the progress made to date through this program. The Cybercrime Atlas, which has now been operational for 12 months, is a collaborative effort to build an action-oriented, global knowledge base​on cybercrime to support the mitigation and disruption of cybercrime at scale. Building on the expertise of the forum's PAC, the initiative is developing a comprehensive picture of the cybercrime landscape that details criminal operations, shared infrastructure, and networks to help law enforcement and government agencies take down cybercriminals and their infrastructure worldwide.

The first year of this initiative offers defenders a roadmap for the systematic disruption of cybercrime. During this time, Cybercrime Atlas contributors shared more than 10,000 community-vetted and actionable data points, created seven comprehensive intelligence packages on emerging threats to distribute broadly to defenders, and supported two cross-border cybercrime disruption efforts. As more organizations become involved in anti-adversary efforts, the Cybercrime Atlas offers valuable lessons learned that should be used to inform related initiatives.

Working Together to Disrupt Our Adversaries

Disrupting cybercriminal operations requires defenders to work across sectors, build relationships, and cultivate trust. The Annual Meeting on Cybersecurity is a critical effort that fosters this kind of collaboration, offering defenders an opportunity to work together and gain critical insights to help build cyber resilience, strengthen global cooperation, and navigate cyber frontiers. The more we grow and scale these and related efforts, the better chances we'll have to identify choke points on the attacker chess board and successfully disrupt cybercrime.