It's easy to turn a blind eye to the dangers of cyberspace. I don't have the understanding of IT infrastructure to perceive the threat landscape around me. I can understand that as digitalization and connectivity increase, risk will increase as well.
October 2023, 23andMe reported a data breach affecting 7 million people. The size of the data breach is small compared to the 3 billion affected by the record-holding 2013 Yahoo data breach, but there is a difference in the sensitivity of the data. Information stolen from Yahoo users included names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, and encrypted passwords. The value of genomic data is still to be determined. According to NIST, "the value of genomic information is predicted to grow as we learn more about the genomes of humans and other organisms. Value also grows as technology advances, and we are able to query the genome in novel ways."
Although biological data security may have unique challenges, the subject exists within the world of cybersecurity. The 23andMe data breach was achieved by "credential stuffing". This is a type of brute force cyberattack involving an injection of stolen user account credentials to breach a system. It's important to see biological data security as a problem that can be broken down into parts. For Biometrika, this leads to the study of networks, risk assessments, incident response, etc. It also leads to the study of crime itself.
What's eerie and dark about the concept of "biological data security" may lie in the question of whether theft of genomic data is an abnormal or normal part of society? Crime as abnormal is associated with the thinking of early European criminologist Cesare Lambroso, who thought lack of empathy or honesty was an evolutionary trait that could be selected against. From this perspective, it would be possible to stop data breaches by eliminating all cybercriminals from our population. French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, argues that crime serves the function of revealing a societies' moral boundaries and cannot be eliminated. It is also possible for theft of genomic data to be normal while we concede that it is morally wrong. The difference in Lambroso's and Durkheim's view of criminology could have great affect the types of solutions we apply.
Organizations, businesses, government may accept the responsibility of securing our data, identities, and the networks that connect us if they value our trust. Security doesn't only defend data, it defends consumer trust, a real element keeping the economy in motion. As an individual, I view myself as limited in the dangerous but interesting world of cyberspace. Biometrika is a tool to see how I can build my capacity and agency through self-education so that I may not have to depend completely on others for protection. So far, I've learned I need to learn low level fundamentals before I can perform high-level, inter-disciplinary operations.
References:
Hassan, Shereen, and Dan Lett. Introduction to Criminology. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, 2023.
Ozkaya, Erdal. Cybersecurity: the Beginner's Guide : A Comprehensive Guide to Getting Started in Cybersecurity, Packt Publishing, Limited, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.cletus.uhh.hawaii.edu:2443/lib/hawaii/detail.action?docID=5781046.
Pulivarti R, Martin N, Byers F, Wagner J, Maragh S, Wilson K, Wojtyniak M, Kreider B, Frances A, Edwards S,
Morris T, Sheldon J, Ross S, Whitlow P (2023) Cybersecurity of Genomic Data. (National Institute of Standards and
Technology, Gaithersburg, MD), NIST Interagency or Internal Report (IR) NIST IR 8432.
https://doi.org/10.6028//NIST.IR.8432