Recovery from a severe solar storm could take months. Extreme temperatures can overwhelm data centres, cascading into healthcare and financial system failures. Undersea cable cuts leave entire nations offline for weeks. A joint report published today by the International Telecommunication Union, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, and Sciences Po documents these risks in detail and argues that the systems societies depend on were not designed with this scale of reliance in mind.
The report, titled "When digital systems fail: The hidden risks of our digital world," draws on input from experts across 12 countries representing national authorities, industry, academia, and international organisations. Its core argument is that digital infrastructure has become systemically critical without the resilience engineering to match.
Among the scenarios it outlines: a severe geomagnetic storm disabling satellites and navigation infrastructure with recovery periods measured in months; temperature extremes forcing data centre shutdowns and triggering cascading failures across mobile networks and healthcare systems; and seismic events severing submarine cables, with weeks-long outages for the affected regions.
Doreen Bogdan-Martin, ITU Secretary-General, said: "Resilience must be built into the DNA of the technologies we depend on. This report urges us to consider the systemic nature of risks and rethink how we protect the systems that connect and empower humanity."
Kamal Kishore, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR, said: "As our societies become more reliant on digital technologies, disruptions caused by disasters can cascade across systems and borders, triggering far-reaching and potentially catastrophic failures. We must plan, build and maintain digital infrastructure with systemic risk in mind - now and for the future. Digital infrastructure must be resilient infrastructure."
The report flags a separate risk that sits outside the threat categories most resilience frameworks address: the loss of analogue skills and fallback options. When digital systems fail at scale, offline alternatives are increasingly unavailable.
Arancha González, Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po, said: "Facing systemic risks means looking beyond data and working across disciplines. This report shows how evidence-based policymaking can help us build resilience in an increasingly interconnected world."
The authors propose six priorities: mapping cross-sector dependencies and preserving analogue skills; updating legal and risk frameworks to treat non-intentional digital disruptions as a core category; establishing fallback systems and multi-sector scenario planning; coordinating on high-impact risks spanning space weather, submarine cables, satellites, and data centres; building community and organisational adaptive capacity; and fostering shared awareness and accountability across sectors and borders.
The report calls for coordinated international action before a major incident triggers what the authors describe as a potential "digital pandemic."
This report urges us to consider the systemic nature of risks and rethink how we protect the systems that connect and empower humanity.
We must plan, build and maintain digital infrastructure with systemic risk in mind - now and for the future. Digital infrastructure must be resilient infrastructure
This report shows how evidence-based policymaking can help us build resilience in an increasingly interconnected world.
