The future of peacekeeping
The future of peacekeeping
Marie Brattberg on defense tech and preventing cyber threats.
When we face war and threats, we have a choice: to let fear and division take over – or to resist and see the opportunities for a better future. One of the topics in focus during GoWest is Defense Tech, and Marie Brattberg has deep insights into the art of preventing threats before they occur.
"Over the past 25 years, the internet has woven itself into the fabric of democracies, businesses, and private lives. This has created efficiency and innovation. But it also exposes vulnerabilities that are exploited by adversaries," says Marie Brattberg.
As chief strategy officer at Recorded Future, she perhaps has the best understanding in Sweden of the threats the country faces. By collecting and analyzing a vast amount of data from the web, dark web, and other sources, they amass extensive threat intelligence. They identify and track threats, attack paths, and adversary groups. In this way, they can identify a potential attack before it occurs.
"Geopolitical turbulence, especially in Europe and the Middle East, disrupts international organizations and weakens the frameworks for peace that we have built," says Marie Brattberg.
A trend is the merging of threats, where cyber threats combine with physical threats and misinformation threats.
"This complexity makes it challenging to predict and defend against sophisticated attacks, with security leaders foreseeing a catastrophic cyber event within two years due to geopolitical instability," she says.
The scale of cyberattacks is escalating. According to Marie Brattberg, we are in the midst of developing a billion-dollar industry that could cost companies up to $10.5 billion by 2025. "Adversaries leverage advanced tools like AI, machine learning, and automation, posing a threat to democracies and the global order established post-World War II", she says.
Today, cybersecurity costs businesses and society around $150 billion a year. This figure is increasing by 12.4% per year. Added to this are the rising costs of cyberattacks.
"Much of the investment focuses on detection tools rather than proactive prevention. Recognizing this gap, threat intelligence emerges as a key pillar in security architectures worldwide. If we can integrate that intelligence, we can get real-time insights into threats, actors, infrastructure, and targets. This is crucial for driving automation and risk analysis. The efficiency and return on investment can be measured," says Marie Brattberg.
The new geopolitical situation has acted as a strong wake-up call for actors worldwide. Traditional defense systems have flaws, and groundbreaking technologies and methods are needed. At GoWest, there are investors, but also a large number of fast-moving startups in various parts of the future defense industry.