The COVID-19 pandemic reminded the world just how interconnected we are, the collective risks we share, and the critical role public health can play in advancing the public good. The internet shares a very similar set of shared risks, but our capacity to understand and mitigate them remains in the Dark Ages.

The practice of cybersecurity today is often more art than science. Despite decades of research, investment, innovation, and diligent work, cybersecurity professionals don’t have access to the kind of comprehensive data or methodologies necessary to study collective risk at any meaningful scale. We are unable to assess the effectiveness of mitigation efforts, identify the wider determinants of cyber security risk, or predict future outcomes. Medicine struggled with similar challenges until the advent of epidemiology and public health sciences sparked new interest in the collection and aggregation of health-related data, paving the way for a more scientifically rigorous approach.