ITU, UNDRR and Sciences Po report warns of a plausible 'digital pandemic'
anselm · x · 2026-10-04
A joint expert report from UNDRR, ITU and Sciences Po, When digital systems fail, argues that digital infrastructure now underpins healthcare, finance and emergency response, and their growing interdependence creates systemic risks. It warns a large-scale cascading failure of critical digital systems — a 'digital pandemic' — is plausible, yet existing governance frameworks aren't designed for it.
Six action priorities:
- Build knowledge bases to identify critical risks, model chain reactions, map cross-sector dependencies
- Update risk frameworks to treat unintentional digital disruption as a core risk
- Strengthen international resilience standards, analogue fallback capacity, joint scenario planning
- Proactive coordination on acute risk vectors; boost societal recovery capacity
- Build trust, shared situational awareness and global collaboration to turn early warnings into action
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