Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs: Weaponizing Digital Health Intelligence
Margaret Bourdeaux, research director for the Security and Global Health Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and colleagues discuss the role of digital information and communication systems in health emergencies and the potential for actors to use that information to undermine or manipulate responses to these emergencies. The authors write, “Recently, concerns that new technologies will facilitate a new generation of bioweapons have grabbed headlines, and appropriately so. However, much less attention has been paid to the risks of cyberattacks on health intelligence systems. This paper focuses on these vulnerabilities and the motivations states may have to exploit them in order to achieve their strategic and geopolitical aims” (January 2020).