Emerging technologies and their effect on cyber security - GOV.UK

This systematic literature review by the UK Department of Science, Innovation and Technology examines cyber security risks emerging from the convergence of emerging technologies like AI, IoT, blockchain, quantum communications, and digital twins. The study analyzes 11 technology pairings through academic literature to identify novel security threats, affected industries, and vulnerable applications.

The research reveals significant cyber security challenges as emerging technologies converge and become embedded in critical infrastructure. AI emerges as a particularly influential technology, introducing new vulnerability classes like adversarial attacks across multiple convergences. Key risks include expanded attack surfaces from increased IoT deployments, novel privacy threats from brain-computer interfaces accessing neural data, and data integrity issues in digital twin systems processing sensitive information.

• Healthcare faces the greatest compound risks from multiple convergences, with vulnerabilities in medical IoT devices, AI-driven diagnostics, and personalized medicine systems potentially endangering patient safety
• Defense and telecommunications sectors experience heightened threats from quantum communications integration and AI-powered systems that could enable new attack vectors
• Manufacturing and smart city applications face intellectual property theft and systemic vulnerabilities from insufficient security frameworks
• Critical applications like autonomous vehicles, smart healthcare systems, and space-air-ground integrated networks represent high-risk convergence points where cyber attacks could have severe real-world consequences