GCRI · Cybersecurity and Digital Resilience
Field overview
Cyber and digital resilience is the capacity of organisations and societies to anticipate, withstand, recover from and adapt to adverse events in digital systems, whether those events are attacks, failures or errors. The field joins computer security, cryptography, software and reliability engineering, network science and organisational studies. It matters because essential services, from electricity to healthcare, now depend on digital systems that few people can see.
- STEM methods
- 6
- Canonical methods this field applies
- Topics
- 8
- Subject pages in the field
- Counterparts
- 7
- Platforms in shared fields across the network
- Report series
- 2
- Reports series it contributes to
From protection to resilience.
Early security practice focused on keeping attackers out. Resilience accepts that some compromises and failures will happen and asks how services continue and recover.
Reduce exposure
Secure design, patching, access control, encryption and network segmentation reduce the chance and impact of compromise.
See problems early
Monitoring and anomaly detection find intrusions and failures before they spread.
Contain and decide
Planned roles, playbooks and communication limit harm during an incident.
Restore and learn
Backups, rebuild procedures and after-action review restore service and improve defences.
Connected activity in Europe.
Night lights, population density and true-colour imagery over Europe, from NASA GIBS. Each layer carries its own date.
The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.
Layers 3
Connected activity, for this page
Keyboard, with the map focused
Hold Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll to zoom
Latest available
NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
Loading the latest NASA imagery.
Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.
Connected activity, framed on Europe.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.
Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONET · NASA HLS S30Sources and licences
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
- VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- MODIS land products (vegetation indices, gross primary production, land cover), NASA LP DAAC and LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
- Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
- © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). ODbL
- Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
- Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
- Observed (EO): NASA HLS S30 (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026). We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
- NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
- Optional layers (5 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.
Layers and dates
- Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
- Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
- True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
- Land cover type (IGBP), yearly: MODIS Terra and Aqua land cover (MCD12Q1), NASA LP DAAC · 2024
- Enhanced vegetation index, rolling 8 days: MODIS Terra EVI, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
Digital failure is now a public safety question.
Digital incidents have halted hospital services, disrupted fuel distribution, interrupted payments and exposed the personal data of large populations. Because many services share the same cloud platforms, software and identity systems, one weakness can affect many sectors at once. The consequences fall unevenly: smaller organisations and public bodies often have the least capacity to defend and recover.
The field also faces structural change. Operational technology in industry and utilities is increasingly connected; artificial intelligence changes both attack and defence; and the expected arrival of quantum computers capable of breaking current public-key cryptography requires a long migration that must begin before the threat is real.
Field overview.
The screen a team would use to follow this subject: its measures, states and decisions. Names are examples and values are illustrative.
The core questions of the field.
- 01
Exposure
Which assets, vulnerabilities and controls matter most. See cyber risk management and identity and data security.
- 02
Consequence
How digital failure becomes physical or social harm. See critical service cyber and information operations.
- 03
Dependency
Where concentration creates shared risk. See cloud and third parties and supply chain security.
- 04
Recovery and transition
How to restore services and prepare for change. See incident response and recovery and post-quantum migration.
Where the field meets other risks.
Cyber resilience underpins Critical Infrastructure, Digital Public Infrastructure and Data and Compute at The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI). It is governed through dialogue at AI and Digital Governance and Disaster and Crisis Governance at The Global Risks Forum (GRF), and its financial dimension is studied at Financial Cyber and Operational Resilience at The Global Risks Alliance (GRA). See dependencies and consequences.
Pages in Field overview.
Questions and answers.
Is cyber resilience the same as cybersecurity?
Which methods does the field rely on?
Does the field cover accidental outages?
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