'The enemy is false information': World leaders and businesses take on cybersecurity in Riyadh

The third Global Cybersecurity Forum in Riyadh brought together world leaders and businesses to discuss and take action in the fight against cybercrime. Under the theme 'Charting Shared Priorities in Cyberspace' the event encourages dialogue, integrating the key drivers that shape it and supports those working towards cyber stability.

"We have one common enemy, and the enemy is false information. It's being attacked. It's being robbed in cyberspace. And this is something we need to take care of and take values in this for all mankind," Dr Margarete Schramböck, Former Minister for Digital & Economic Affairs, Austria told Euronews.

86% of business leaders believe that a catastrophic cyber event is likely to occur in the next two years according to the World Economic Forum. This comes as an Interpol report ranks cybercrime as one of the top five global growing threats.

“For us, we're seeing the biggest threat as ransomware attacks," says Bernardo Pillot, Assistant Director of Cybercrime Operations and Threat Management at INTERPOL. 

"It's been continuing to grow for the last three years. We've seen a huge increase in the amount of attacks going on globally, not just to big businesses, but we're looking at attacks to small, medium businesses, health care, educational systems, as well as critical infrastructure." 

Working together to ensure a safer cyber-future

Globally, cybercrime is expected to cost victims around €7.6 trillion by the end of the year, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. Collaboration and unification by world leaders and businesses was a universal talking point in a call to action against impending cyber threats.

Former President of the European Commission and Former Prime Minister of Portugal, Jose Manuel Barroso said, "When I was President of the Commission, I participated in the G20 summit from 2008 to 2014. In spite of all the differences at that time, there was overall a good cooperation between the United States, China, and the European Union. I would not say this is the case today. We saw the level of cooperation, the sincerity in global cooperation going down very clearly."

Some of the most serious threats in the cyber world are those against children. WeProtect Global Alliance is an organisation that tackles child sexual exploitation and abuse online. 

"That’s something that's increased dramatically over the past two years," revealed Executive Director Iain Drennan. "We put out a global threat assessment last month which showed an 87% increase, and we're also seeing growth in AI-supported abuse and also in financially motivated extortion."