Cyberbiosecurity: A Pillar of Trust in Global Health

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This essay is part of the series: World Health Day 2026: Standing with Science in an Age of Shared Risk

In 2025, a cyberattack on a nursery chain in the United Kingdom (UK) led to the leak of sensitive personal information of over 8,000 children, including names, addresses, and photographs, which led to the issuance of specific cybersecurity guidelines and the strengthening of the requirements for stricter data protection under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) for those handling children’s information. This year, global stakeholders have come together to continue the need for securing data in health with the 2026 World Health Day theme, "Together for Health. Stand with Science." This theme reflects a significant shift in the global scientific ecosystem. Here, trust is no longer reliant on empirical evidence alone but increasingly on the integrity of systems that produce, store, and disseminate scientific knowledge and information. This reliance on digital and biological infrastructures highlights the need to make such systems safe and trustworthy.

The integration of life sciences and digital systems through innovations such as genomic data digitisation, autonomous labs, cloud computing for science, and global data sharing has not only accelerated science and innovation but also introduced a new type of risk that traditional cybersecurity or biosecurity policies cannot manage. Cyberbiosecurity, thus, is a key area for addressing the security of biological data and the infrastructures supporting modern science.

Cyberbiosecurity and the One Health Paradigm

The "One Health" approach highlights the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. While the integrated approach is beneficial to the future of biotech, the conceptual framework regarding cyberbiosecurity is still in its nascent stages. For example, the surveillance of zoonotic diseases is facilitated by the development of integrated digital platforms like the Global Early Warning System (GLEWS+) that integrates data from human health, animal health, and environmental health sectors, illustrating the role of data infrastructure in disease surveillance. However, such an increased reliance on digital platforms also creates new risks. If such a platform were insecure and suffered a cyber-attack, it could compromise disease monitoring, personal data, and research data.

While there are movements for sharing critical information, achieving this goal of integrating cyberbiosecurity within the One Health framework will require a broader reconceptualisation of health security that acknowledges data integrity as an essential dimension of biosecurity.

Cyberbiosecurity, an extension of biosecurity that focuses on protecting biological information, digital platforms, and various cyber-physical infrastructures, must be prioritised in protecting disease surveillance platforms, protecting sensitive biological information, and dealing with various risks emanating from various emerging technologies such as synthetic biology, artificial intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT). The COVID-19 pandemic has also underscored the need to protect digital health surveillance platforms that monitor zoonotic diseases across species. Here, countries have employed integrated dashboards and genomic data platforms like Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), through which laboratories worldwide have shared data on the sequencing of the virus to monitor the development of emerging variants in real time, demonstrating the critical role of the underlying digital infrastructure in the success of these platforms, further emphasising the need to protect biological data systems.

While there are movements for sharing critical information, achieving this goal of integrating cyberbiosecurity within the One Health framework will require a broader reconceptualisation of health security that acknowledges data integrity as an essential dimension of biosecurity. This entails effective management of operational risks in high-containment labs, enhancing resilience in agricultural and ecological monitoring infrastructure, and also developing multi-stakeholder partnerships to achieve ‘cyberbiosecurity by design.’ Through this integration of the One Health approach and a framework prioritising cyberbiosecurity, a stronger and more agile health security architecture can be created that is able to respond to biosecurity risks as well as their newly significant digital counterparts.

Cyberbiosecurity and the Evolving Threat Landscape

The risk, of course, is not limited to contemporary technologies. The development of upcoming tools such as brain-computer interfaces, neurotechnology, and even immersive digital technologies introduces further dimensions to cyberbiosecurity. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) directly convert brain signals into digital signals. If there is an invasion of these signals, it is possible that an individual’s thoughts, intentions, and even motor functions could be compromised. Neurotechnology is also used to monitor and even control brain activity. The information obtained is highly sensitive and could be exploited if not properly managed. Immersive digital technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, monitor an individual’s behavioural and physiological responses in real time. These responses provide detailed profiles of an individual’s characteristics that could be exploited to compromise their decision-making, thoughts, and even emotional states. These examples illustrate that cyberbiosecurity extends beyond biological data to include neural and cognitive information. The integration of these technologies into healthcare and research may pose new risks, which may extend beyond the present-day understanding of cyberbiosecurity risk, that are limited to data breaches, affecting perception and decision-making. This calls for the anticipation of these risks by developing standards prior to the widespread adoption of these technologies.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) directly convert brain signals into digital signals. If there is an invasion of these signals, it is possible that an individual’s thoughts, intentions, and even motor functions could be compromised.

The integrated nature of biological systems and information has made this space susceptible to intrusion, manipulation, and disruption. These risks call into question some of the foundational principles of scientific inquiry and the theme of the 2026 World Health Day: that data is accurate, systems are sound, and processes are secure. If these principles are breached, then it is clear that even scientific inquiry is open to question.

Data Governance, Sovereignty, and Global Health Tensions

The governance of biological data has its own set of challenges. Unlike other data sets, biological data is identifiable by its very nature. Moreover, its implications are not limited to the individual but extend to the sample's relatives and even to whole populations. While data sharing across the globe is the need of the hour for scientific progress, as witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are also concerns surrounding its misuse. This has brought data sovereignty into sharp focus. While nations want to restrict sensitive biological data for strategic and security purposes, over-emphasising data-nationalism may result in the fragmentation of the global scientific ecosystem. This may have adverse consequences for developing nations.

While nations want to restrict sensitive biological data for strategic and security purposes, over-emphasising data-nationalism may result in the fragmentation of the global scientific ecosystem. This may have adverse consequences for developing nations.

Already, the international mechanisms of global governance in the field of cyberbiosecurity are fragmented or lacking. The international conventions and norms in the field of biosecurity, such as the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the International Health Regulations (IHR), are not sufficient to address the interplay between cyber and biosecurity. In the same way, the international conventions and norms under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), including the Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, are insufficient to address cyberbiosecurity.

Towards an Integrated Cyberbiosecurity Framework

Beyond these, different countries have different national-level attempts to implement international norms in the field of biosecurity, such as the development of national biotechnology security strategies, bio-economy policies, and cyber resilience strategies. In India, the majority of this work is covered by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), under the Ministry of Science and Technology. Addressing the challenges of cyberbiosecurity requires a comprehensive and coordinated policy response at national and international levels. In this venture, the DBT and aligned organisations in India can follow the following recommendations:

1. Recognition of Biological Data as Critical Infrastructure: The DBT can acknowledge biological data and associated research infrastructures as critical infrastructure to prioritise and better standardise the cybersecurity of such data outside of existing data protection norms that can be formulated for less critical data.
2. Development of Global Standards in Biological Data Security: International bodies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) need to prioritise developing standards in biometric data security. However, this can begin with the DBT taking charge in this area and creating standards that ensure bio data security, including privacy and equity and benefit sharing, to ensure Indian research, along with Indian citizens’ data, is protected, and future standards that may be developed internationally continue to prioritise global south countries like India, due to existing standards.
3. Embedding Cyberbiosecurity in One Health Approaches: National One Health approaches should include cyberbiosecurity to ensure that the resilience of cyber infrastructure is considered in health security. The DBT can work with the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) to help advance this effort.
4. Building Public-Private Partnerships: In the era of technology, private sector organisations cannot be ignored in the process of policy formulation. Since a significant portion of infrastructure and innovation is owned and operated by private-sector organisations, public-private partnerships are important in the context of cyberbiosecurity. This will facilitate the sharing of information and the development of best practices. Here, the DBT can also look at partnerships with other countries, like Japan, which are already partnering with India through efforts like the Lotus/Sakura program, and incorporate cyberbiosecurity from the research phase across the two countries in academia and the private sector to ensure easier adoption in the future.

Living in a world characterised by the convergence of biology and the Internet means that trust in science and the infrastructures that support it cannot be separated. To truly “stand with science” in the modern world means securing the infrastructure that supports it. Without adequate cyberbiosecurity policies in place, the integrity of scientific knowledge and the effectiveness of health and international cooperation will always be vulnerable. Cyberbiosecurity must be prioritised, not only for the risks present in the current technologies, but for the evolving technologies we will see in the future.

Shravishtha Ajaykumar is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy, and Technology.

• Healthcare
• Cyber Security
• India
• AI and biosecurity
• biological data security
• cyber-physical systems
• Cyberbiosecurity
• data governance
• data integrity
• data sovereignty
• DBT India
• digital health infrastructure
• disease surveillance
• genomic data
• global health security
• One Health
• public-private partnerships
• WHO standards

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