Filippa Lentzos, Tim Stevens
Consider the past few years. A global pandemic revealed how quickly a biological threat can spread through tightly coupled economies and fragile health systems. At the same time, ransomware attacks—in which data is encrypted and access restored only upon payment of a ransom—repeatedly disrupted hospitals, pipelines, and public services, demonstrating how small groups operating in the digital domain can impose widespread disruption. These crises did not occur in isolation. They exposed a deeper reality: The infrastructures that sustain modern life are simultaneously vulnerable to biological risk and digital exploitation.
Yet biosecurity measures meant to prevent or mitigate human-made biological risks remain largely anchored in conceptual frameworks inherited from the nuclear era, like arms control agreements and export controls. These frames focus on threats and risks that are imagined as episodic, visible, and bounded—something to be deterred or prohibited. That framing has helped sustain a powerful taboo against biological weapons. But it is increasingly misaligned with the kinds of challenges emerging from rapid advances in biotechnology and the broader technological environment.
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