UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL RESILIENCE

Foresight and Navigation through Cyber Heavy Weather

Days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds
Available for Purchase September 30th
Sign Up for Alerts
In 2025, a single cyber attack shut down a carmaker’s plants in five countries, cost the UK economy an estimated £1.9 billion, and pulled the British government into an unprecedented loan guarantee to limit growing damage to suppliers and customers.
 
Digital storms have wide ranging sources and impacts. Geopolitical conflicts pursued through digital disruptions of critical services, AI finding software vulnerabilities enabling attacks faster than human teams can patch, and supply chains that snap under pressure can all combine into a polycrisis causing global chaos. Organizations that effectively respond to such crises understand the drivers of digital risk, analyze potential threatening situations, and prepare before these storms arrive.
 
Understanding Digital Resilience gives leaders a framework for that preparation, built on four steps. The authors build upon proven planning methodologies from military wargames to corporate scenario analysis to horizon scanning. Analyzing real world cyber attacks as well as scenarios portraying plausible future polycrisis possibilities, the book illustrates how organizations can build digital resilience capacity.

You cannot stop the storms.
You can decide how to prepare, survive and thrive.​

Expert perspectives on Strategic Cyber Foresight

“The cybersecurity industry rarely talks about the “how.” How can I improve my cyber resilience? How should I implement this blueprint? This book does exactly that – it talks about the how​ and provides a practical guide for leaders wanting to improve their cybersecurity.​"
J. Michael DanielPresident & CEO of Cyber Threat Alliance and former Cybersecurity
Coordinator in the Executive Office of the U.S. President
“Digital threats are increasing at an unprecedented pace. This book equips leaders with a practical, clear-eyed framework for navigating risk before crisis strikes. By connecting cybersecurity, geopolitical risk, technology adoption, and organizational resilience, it moves beyond technical checklists and shows executives how to think strategically about the storms ahead. For boards, CEOs, and senior leaders trying to understand what resilience really demands in today’s threat environment, this is a timely and highly relevant read.​”
Gloria GlaubmanChief Technology Officer of Acclaim Technical Services and
former Senior Cyber Advisor in the U.S. government​
“Growing cyber disruptions are impacting virtually every company and organization and most are neither prepared nor see them coming. This practical scenario driven book provides a framework that allows executives to anticipate potential cyber disruptions, mitigate them when they occur and evolve to more resilient and strategic organizations for the future.​"
Chris Painterworld's first cyber diplomat and former Senior Director
for Cyber Policy in the U.S. National Security Council​
“Digital resilience is rapidly becoming a defining leadership challenge for organizations across the global public and private sectors. This book offers a practical framework for understanding how geopolitical risk, technological dependency, cyber threats, and operational disruption increasingly intersect. Grounded in real-world examples and plausible future scenarios, it challenges leaders to move beyond cybersecurity as a technical function and toward resilience as an operational capability. A timely and highly relevant guide for executives navigating an increasingly contested digital environment."
Laura Galanteformer Director of the Cyber Threat Intelligence
Integration Center of the United States​
"Greg Rattray and his co-authors provide a framework and a vocabulary for informed discussions among boards, executives and technical IT support staffs on strengthening their companies' cybersecurity resilience. This book avoids jargon, explains the essentials of corporate network operations and recommends a sensible and practical approach to reduce risk of catastrophic damage to companies' operations and finances.​"
Dennis Blairformer Director of National Intelligence
"Whatever surprises the roil of ongoing technology transformations may present to those who lead into an uncertain future, one thing will remain constant. People, leadership and lessons derived from past experience will continue to be a determining factor in success or failure. Understanding Digital Resilience delivers on that enduring reality in the form of an essential handbook for leaders who chart the course of institutions in a world both challenged and empowered by technology while stakeholders remain resolutely focused on the achievement of human aspirations.​"
Chris InglisFirst U.S. National Cyber Director​
"The ability of organizations and institutions to prepare for, defend against, operate through, and recover from cyber attacks and other digital disruptions has never been in more demand. In Understanding Digital Resilience, Gregory Rattray, Seungmin Helen Lee, and Ian Pelekis bring years of experience and insight to clearly lay out practices and processes that help build digital resilience in the face of today's and tomorrow’s threats."
Adam Segaldirector of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program at the
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and author of The Hacked World Order:
How Nations Fight, Trade, Maneuver, and Manipulate in the Digital Age​
"Cybersecurity is evolving rapidly and fundamentally. Resilience is now central as companies and countries work to ensure the continued operation and security of networks and data. This timely, well-written book lays out the requirements for foresight and success in building resilience as we move further into a changing and difficult cyber environment."
James LewisDistinguished Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and
a Senior Adviser in the Economic Security and Technology Department at CSIS​
"Cybersecurity is no longer about merely security. As digital technologies have come to underpin society and economies, digital resilience is a better way to tackle the interconnected risks and solutions. Based on decades of experience across the finance sector, the military, and the White House, in Understanding Digital Resilience, Rattray, Lee, and Pelekis explain the drivers of cyber risk, provide tools to develop risk scenarios, and give guidance on building true resilience."
Jason Healeyfounding director of Columbia University's School of International and
Public Affairs (SIPA) Cyber Program and founding member of the Office of
National Cyber Director at the White House​
"Amazing book that draws on past best practices to take on future challenges, especially the complex ones that many factors including digital and geopolitical risks."
Edward Amorosoauthor of Fundamentals of Computer Security Technology and
Reaching the Chasm: How to Drive Your Early-Stage Start-Up to Scale​
"Understanding Digital Resilience is required reading for senior executives leading institutions and infrastructures that rely on digital networks. The threat to your systems is real—from both nation-states and criminal actors. This book lays out the key premise for fighting and winning a digital war: you must assess and prepare your systems, processes, and people ahead of time and be ready to rapidly and repeatedly recover your networks once the attack begins."
Mark MontgomeryExecutive Director of CSC 2.0 and Senior Director,
CCTI at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)​

Real Scenario Walkthrough

On the evening of Friday, September 19, 2025, a cyber attack disrupted Collins Aerospace, a U.S.-based aviation technology vendor and subsidiary of RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies). The attack hit Collins systems supporting MUSE (Multi-User System Environment), software that airlines use for electronic check-in, baggage drops, and boarding.

The disruption affected major European airports. On September 22, the EU’s cybersecurity agency, ENISA, confirmed that a ransomware incident caused the outage, though it did not name a perpetrator. Security researchers have since linked the intrusion to HardBit ransomware, and reports describe a phishing lure disguised as an RTX firmware update as the likely entry point, with more than 1,000 computers affected. The weekend travel disruption contributed to at least 217 flight cancelations and an estimated loss of millions of euros for affected airports and airlines.

Step 1: Insight

It’s early 2024, and you are the CEO of a company that owns an affected European airport. You are thinking about how to remain digitally resilient and consider the risk drivers that could bring a digital storm to your enterprise. How did your current technology dependencies create single points of failure? What unique cyber risk drivers apply specifically to your industry?

Understand your risk drivers

Technology

Check-in, bag drop, and gate assignments had been consolidated onto shared MUSE software used by many airlines and airports across Europe, creating a high concentration risk.

Cyber

According to external reports, Collins had outdated internet-facing systems, end-of-life VPN devices, and weak/valid credential exposure, along with potential prior data theft from a BianLian ransomware attack in 2023.

Geopolitical

Aviation and cyber regulation are fragmented — the EU’s NIS2 and the UK’s rules diverge from the lighter U.S. approach, leaving one vendor to answer to competing compliance regimes. Meanwhile, Russia has carried out repeated cyber campaigns against Western logistics providers and technology companies, including airports and air traffic management systems.

Step 2: Preparation

Develop “severe but plausible” scenarios that combine multiple risk drivers with your industry and company profile. How do the strands of technological, geopolitical, supply chain, and regulatory challenges combine to impact your airport’s operations?

Scenario planning for digital storms

You understand that when a shared vendor like MUSE goes dark, there will be delays, cancelations, and chaos. At some airports, passengers may stand in long lines while staff switch to pen and paper — manually verifying passenger information, writing baggage tags by hand, and checking bags. Gate changes would need to be coordinated through two-way radios rather than digitally.

Scenario planning turns those improvised workarounds into prepared ones. Working through this storm in advance identifies preparation steps that you can take now:

Explore alternative vendors and redundancies that would allow for critical processes even when MUSE goes dark.

Backup procedures prepared, practiced, and in place, such as leveraging radio and call signs for gate changes.

A business continuity plan with specific vendor outages and a recovery playbook for the failure of a key supplier.

Step 3: Execution

It’s September 2025, and the digital storm has arrived: check-in and baggage systems are down at your airport, flights are delayed or canceled, and lines of frustrated passengers swarm airline desks.

 

Airports couldn’t work on the repair because the software ran on Collins’ networks. However, Collins’ parent company, RTX, later told the SEC that MUSE runs on customer-specific networks kept separate from RTX’s own enterprise systems. Either way, the airports waited. Reporting also described Collins machines being reinfected after cleanup, which stretched the recovery out.

Apply the action steps to weather the digital storms

Execution puts your strategic preparation in place and response plans in action. It requires a navigator to own the practice of strategic foresight inside the organization. This navigator should be appointed before the crisis occurs.

Operations knew check-in ran through one platform. Procurement held the contract. Cybersecurity teams knew ransomware was hitting aviation suppliers. The navigator thought through these factors, put the pieces together, and pushed for an updated business continuity plan that included executing the workarounds established.

Step 4: Evolution

It’s now mid-2026. The digital storm has passed: RTX filed with the SEC on September 26, 2025, confirmed ransomware, and said it expected no material impact on the business. What did you and your organization learn from the digital storm, and how are the lessons being implemented?

Debrief the storm and identify actionable learning for future storms

Organizations should use a post-incident review to test whether their response plan actually held up under pressure, or whether confusion and improvisation carried the response instead. Potential lessons learned include:

Our check-in depends on one vendor with no substitute. This means we should establish an agreed number of desks able to run offline and test them.

Standalone check-in laptops, iPads, basic mobile tools, and manual operations with pen and paper helped us get by. Should we integrate those processes into staff training exercises?

We had no way to get status from the vendor while we were down, meaning we should add outage reporting terms at the next contract renewal.

Heathrow experienced ”minimal” disruptions and no cancelations related to the incident, whereas Brussels asked airlines to cancel nearly 140 flights. We should assess the differences in operations between the airports to strengthen resiliency.

Scenario Conclusion

Understanding Digital Resilience: Foresight and Navigation through Cyber Heavy Weather provides readers with the framework to respond to incidents like the Collins Aerospace while providing real-world and polycrisis scenarios to strengthen your toolset for effective strategic foresight.

Reach out to icr@nextpeak.net to learn more.

BEYOND THE BOOK

Sign up for updates

Fill out the form to get connected and receive updates straight to your inbox. Unsubscribe at any time.

icr@nextpeak.net