Senior law enforcement officers at the Forum identified ransomware, social engineering, Darknet markets and – despite the security potential of blockchain – threats related to cryptocurrency as persisting concerns. They also predicted that physical convergence of IoT, offensive AI, cloud computing, data security, and online channel threats will be "growth" areas for cybercrime in 2019. Likewise, experts from the investment community also warned that as the cyberrattack surface expands, incentivizing and measuring cybersecurity will become more difficult and important.
To address these challenges, the World Economic Forum has created the Centre for Cybersecurity, comprised of leaders in government, business, academia, law enforcement, and cybersecurity. The Centre for Cybersecurity functions as an autonomous organization under the auspices of the World Economic Forum, and its aim is to establish the first global platform for government, business, security experts, and law enforcement agencies to collaborate on cybersecurity challenges. The first annual gathering of this group ended in December 2018 with calls for action to fight the rise of cybercrime and overcome three major challenges: lack of trust, lack of cooperation, and a lack of adequate skills.
The Centre for Cybersecurity also announced that Accenture, Fortinet, and Sberbank will serve as the Founding Partners of the Centre, holding permanent seats on the board, which will then be filled with two-year terms held by representatives across the spectrum of organizations, industries, and countries. According to Phil Quade, Fortinet's CISO, "public and private cooperation is very important" in these efforts.
Ken Xie, Fortinet's Founder, President, and CEO, further stated that "Fortinet firmly believes in the importance of collaboration and information-sharing to combat cybercrime. Being named a Founding Partner of the new Centre for Cybersecurity is important for global multi-stakeholder collaboration, and yet another step forward for our own mission to secure the largest enterprises, service providers, and government organizations in the world."