Vitalik: The cybersecurity endgame will favor defense; more than 1% of GDP should be invested in strengthening cybersecurity and biosecurity
Vitalik Buterin said in a post on X that he was not predicting that defense would automatically gain the upper hand over offense. Rather, he believes cybersecurity will ultimately reach an endgame that favors defense, though the transition will be difficult. He noted that “good people finding vulnerabilities in released software before bad people do” is not a game in which defense has the advantage. For the game to truly favor defense, a deeper methodological shift is needed, including formal verification and aggressively reducing the trusted computing base (TCB). These changes are only just beginning. He also said this is an important reason why he is sympathetic to slowing or pausing AI development, and called for more than 1% of GDP to be invested in cybersecurity, biosecurity, and strengthening the physical world.
Vitalik Buterin said in a post on X that he was not predicting that defense would automatically gain the upper hand over offense. Rather, he believes cybersecurity will ultimately reach an endgame that favors defense, though the transition will be difficult. He noted that “good people finding vulnerabilities in released software before bad people do” is not a game in which defense has the advantage. For the game to truly favor defense, a deeper methodological shift is needed, including formal verification and aggressively reducing the trusted computing base (TCB). These changes are only just beginning. He also said this is an important reason why he is sympathetic to slowing or pausing AI development, and called for more than 1% of GDP to be invested in cybersecurity, biosecurity, and strengthening the physical world.