GENEVA (AN) — A severe solar storm, submarine cable break, satellite disruption or extreme weather event could trigger cascading digital failures across communications, finance, healthcare and emergency response systems, according to a new expert report.
The report, released on Tuesday by the International Telecommunication Union, the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and Sciences Po, warns that societies have become deeply dependent on digital systems whose hidden vulnerabilities are still poorly understood and often absent from standard risk planning. The risk, the report says, is not only that a system fails, but that governments and operators do not recognize the full scale of the crisis until failures have already spread.
