Dr Gareth Mott is a Lecturer in Security and Intelligence in the School of Politics and International Relations the University of Kent. Dr Mott’s research specialises in the interchange between technology and software and its socio-political implications. He has published on cyberterrorism, peer-to-peer technology and extremist message dissemination, and the role of ‘identity’ in the security politics of cyberspace. He convenes a popular research-led module entitled ‘Governance and War in Cyberspace’. He is an Organisational Lead of the Institute of Cyber Security for Society and is a keen advocate of a ‘big tent’ approach to the interdisciplinary researching and teaching of cyberspace politics.

Twitter: @moleman2006

Dr Jason R.C. Nurse is an Associate Professor in Cyber Security at the University of Kent. He is also a Visiting Academic at the University of Oxford. Specifically, his research concentrates on investigating interdisciplinary approaches to enhance and maintain cyber security for organisations, individuals and governments. Dr Nurse has published over 100 peer-reviewed research articles and he has had his research featured in national and international media including Newsweek, BBC, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, ComputerWeekly and The Conversation.

Twitter: @jasonnurse

Website: https://jasonnurse.github.io/

Drawing on perspectives from both Politics and International Relations and Computing Science, this paper considers lessons-learnt from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with respect to mitigating societal harms presented by the proliferation of ransomware. The paper outlines the state of the art understanding of cyber resilience as a concept and strategy. Building on this assessment, the paper analyses good-practice lessons-learned from the pandemic that may be transferable to matters of sociotechnical security. It is argued that, given the demonstrated capacity of ransomware incidents to disrupt critical systems and services – and the long-term unsustainability of ransom payment as a mitigation strategy – resilience-building against this threat will necessitate improvements in the secureness of the interrelated nexus between contemporary societies and the networked systems upon which they rely.