Cybersecurity Futures

The need for long-term strategic foresight in cybersecurity has never been greater. 

From ubiquitous software-controlled vehicles, Web 3.0, innovations in gaming, virtual reality, and hyper-scale Cloud adoption, to supply chain frictions, a proliferation of inexpensive tools available to cyber criminals, the emergence of synthetic image generators, and fractures in global internet governance, the landscape of digital security is constantly changing — and by 2030, it will once again be radically transformed. Navigating this complex world will require strategic foresight. Those who begin now to look toward this complex new future will have the advantage.

Cybersecurity Futures 2030 is a foresight-focused scenario-planning exercise to inform cybersecurity strategic plans around the globe. The scenarios help organizations build capacity and better prepare to seize opportunities, address challenges, and mitigate risks that exist just over the horizon. 

Led by subject-matter experts at UC Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC) and co-developed with industry partners and civil-society allies, the resulting scenarios consider how cyber is set to transform over the next five-to-seven years in order to help decision-makers anticipate and address tomorrow’s cybersecurity challenges.

Participate in Cybersecurity Futures 2030

Industry affiliates electing to join CLTC’s efforts enjoy a suite of hands-on opportunities to shape and engage with project outputs:

  • A jointly published report setting forth the scenarios and what was discovered as a result of the workshops
  • A set of resources that can be used by senior decision-makers as they seek to make strategic choices concerning investments, operations, technology implementations, and human capital; and recommendations for measures that should be prioritized for collective global action
  • National and global convenings related to the release of findings and recommendations

The Cybersecurity Futures 2030 research and policy agenda is broadly applicable across countries and regions, incorporating cutting-edge academic research together with voices of diverse, often under-represented global stakeholders.

Download the Cybersecurity Futures 2030 one-pager to learn how your organization can help address unprecedented cybersecurity challenges looming just beyond the horizon.

Previous Cybersecurity Scenarios

Cybersecurity Scenarios 2025

In 2018, decision-makers from government, industry, civil society, academia, and other domains gathered for a series of international workshops to engage with and respond to scenarios depicting potential cybersecurity challenges for the year 2025. The resulting report, “Cybersecurity Futures 2025: Insights and Findings,” provides insights to help decision-makers drive operational and tactical adaptation for a rapidly changing technology security environment.

Read Cybersecurity Futures 2025: Insights and Findings

Cybersecurity Scenarios 2020

In 2015, CLTC launched its first set of cybersecurity scenarios created to inform its research agenda and serve as a starting point for conversation among academic researchers, industry practitioners, and government policymakers. These scenarios are not predictions—it’s impossible to make precise predictions about such a complex set of issues. Rather, the scenarios paint a landscape of future possibilities, exploring how emerging and unknown forces could intersect to reshape the relationship between humans and technology—and what it means to be “secure.”

Read “Post-Mortem 2020: Looking Back on CLTC’s Scenarios from 2015” for reflections on what we foresaw — and what we didn’t.

Read Cybersecurity Futures 2020