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The United States of Cyber Debility

Posted: August 11th, 2017

By Gregory Michaelidis

Gregory Michaelidis is a Cybersecurity Initiative Fellow at New America and contributor to TechRepublic. He is the founder of Security Awareness Lab LLC, a consultancy that helps clients understand and communicate clearly about complex challenges like cybersecurity.

Americans are suffering from an undiagnosed condition. Overwhelmed and outmatched by the allure, complexity, and insecurity of networked technologies, we’ve been left confused and compromised across multiple fault lines. The public’s poor aptitude for digital life has now moved beyond the realm of just personal risk and actually poses a legitimate threat to our national security. It is time we acknowledge America is in a state of “cyber debility” and then take clear-eyed steps to address it.

Surely, though, America’s political, social, and technological problems are separate and unrelated, no?

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