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The science of cyber risk is inherently interdisciplinary, argue Gregory Falco and colleagues in this Policy Forum, and no single academic field on its own can adequately address related problems. The researchers also propose a new multi-field model for addressing this risk.
"Only through such multidisciplinary collaboration can the science of cyber risk systematically move forward," write the authors.
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Perhaps generally considered to be a technical issue in the wheelhouse of computer science, cyber risk encompasses a broad and increasingly complex gamut of digital technologies and information systems spanning many fields and sectors. However, as a field of study, cyber risk means different things to a variety of disparate academic fields that very rarely coordinate across disciplinary boundaries. Here, Falco et al. make the case that cyber risk research can—and should—be systematically addressed through a common collaborative research agenda that equally involves relevant academic fields, such as behavioral science, data science, economics law, management science, and political science.
With input from experts and stakeholders across different fields within academia, industry, and government agencies worldwide, Falco et al. developed a unified concept model for cyber risk, which establishes a core list of questions that need to be addressed to understand cyber risk and identifies how each field can best contribute to the efforts.
