Critical cyberattacks: Should We Ditch Digital Technology?

Does the Convenience of an Always-Connected World Come at a Price?

Digital technology has profoundly transformed our daily lives. Data can be accessed remotely, inventory is monitored automatically, equipment communicates with other systems, and tasks that once took hours can now be completed in seconds. These advances are real, but they have also created an increasing dependence on networks, servers and software.

Cyberattacks targeting political organisations and equipment used throughout the food supply chain illustrate two sides of this dependence. In one case, access to an online vote can be disrupted; in another, IT systems can affect the preservation of food. The consequences are no longer purely digital: they affect everyday life, the economy and public trust.

A system that performs well under normal conditions is not necessarily resilient in a crisis. The real question is therefore not whether technology is good or bad, but what happens when it becomes unavailable, malfunctions or is compromised.

Does Everything Really Need to Be Connected?

A commercial refrigerator can be connected to enable remote temperature monitoring. Medical equipment can transmit data in real time. These capabilities offer clear benefits, but should their essential functions depend on an external network?

For sensitive equipment, an alternative approach deserves consideration: maintaining autonomous local controls, restricting remote commands and ensuring safe operation in the event of a lost connection. A cyberattack should not be able to disable every essential function of a device on its own.

This issue affects medical devices, food storage, energy, water supplies and industrial infrastructure. The answer is not to disconnect every device, since some connections are essential for safety. It is to connect where there is a genuine benefit, isolate systems where appropriate and provide backup solutions tailored to the risks.

Paper and Pen: A Forgotten Form of Insurance?

Digital records are convenient, fast and easy to share. But if a server becomes inaccessible, the information it contains can suddenly disappear from professionals' everyday workflows. By contrast, a properly stored paper document remains readable without electricity, an internet connection or software.

In a medical practice, public administration or business, keeping selected forms, contact lists and essential documents could help maintain a minimum level of activity during a prolonged outage. Printing every piece of data would be neither realistic nor desirable, but carefully selected physical copies can complement digital backups.

Paper is not infallible: it can be lost, destroyed or accessed by unauthorised people. It must therefore be protected and reserved for information that is genuinely necessary. The goal is not to replace databases, but to prevent them from becoming the only way to access essential information.

Training Staff to Work Without Screens

Knowing how to use software does not mean knowing how to work without it. When a system fails, employees may find themselves unable to record an order, retrieve a file or carry out a procedure they normally handle with ease.

Organisations should therefore establish contingency procedures and train their staff to use them. Who decides when to switch to manual operations? Where are the backup forms kept? How should activities carried out during an outage be recorded, and how can errors be avoided when systems are restored?

Regular exercises would help test these arrangements before a real crisis occurs. The goal is not necessarily to maintain every activity at its normal level, but to preserve priority functions and limit the consequences of an interruption.

Voting: Digital Convenience Versus Democratic Trust

Online voting can make participation easier and simplify certain processes. However, it raises important questions about service availability, ballot secrecy, security, result verification and voter confidence. An attack can disrupt access to a vote even when the integrity of recorded ballots has not been compromised.

A paper ballot has a particular advantage: it provides a physical record that can be retained and recounted under established procedures. It is not risk-free, but it allows verification that does not rely exclusively on a computer system.

For public elections, retaining physical ballots and an auditable counting process is therefore an important option. More broadly, any digital voting procedure should be assessed against concrete guarantees of security, accessibility and verifiability, with appropriate contingency arrangements in case of an incident.

Three Scenarios We Should Be Prepared For

• In a hospital: a cyberattack makes medical records inaccessible. Secure paper procedures and contingency access to essential information help sustain some patient care, without replacing medical safety requirements.
• In a supermarket: refrigeration monitoring systems are disrupted. Independent local checks, autonomous alarms and clear food-safety procedures help protect products and limit losses.
• In a public administration office: an IT outage prevents requests from being processed for several days. Paper-based submissions, receipts and recovery procedures help prevent lost applications and a complete interruption of public services.

How Can We Build Genuine Resilience?

A resilience strategy does not require a wholesale return to old methods. It requires modern technology and backup options to coexist. Every organisation should identify its essential activities, assess the consequences of an outage and determine which operations must continue without a network or remote server.

This means maintaining regularly tested digital backups, keeping essential recovery information offline, limiting unnecessary remote access, establishing manual procedures and training staff. For critical equipment, organisations must also verify that losing connectivity will not compromise its essential functions.

These measures have a cost, but a prolonged outage can be far more expensive, causing food losses, delays in medical care, administrative paralysis or a loss of public trust. Resilience means preparing today for solutions we hope never to need.

Key Principles to Remember

• Do not connect equipment without assessing the benefits and risks of that connection.
• Preserve local autonomy for essential functions wherever technically and medically appropriate.
• Maintain offline backups and carefully selected emergency documents that are protected and regularly updated.
• Train staff to operate manually and conduct regular crisis exercises.
• Establish continuity and recovery procedures for essential services, including voting systems.
• Verify that backup solutions actually work before a crisis occurs.