Foresight

In line with the ENISA’s European Union Agency for Cybersecurity’s sixth strategic objective, “Foresight on Emerging and Future Cybersecurity Challenges ”, the Agency seeks to improve the EU’s cybersecurity resilience, by increasing awareness of future threats and countermeasures amongst its Member States and EUIBAs stakeholders. Fulfilling this objective likewise supports the other 6 strategic objectives as it provides input on future threats and challenges.

To achieve this goal, ENISA has developed its own cybersecurity foresight methodological framework grounded in foresight research and future studies in 2021.  The framework, created in collaboration with the Ad-Hoc Working Group that includes futurists, sociologists, forecasters and foresight experts, was also used in 2022 to identify threats and challenges likely to emerge by 2030 together with cybersecurity experts from MS and EUIBAs . You can find the report with the complete description of the 2022 foresight exercise here.  The report was updated in 2024 and the executive summary is available here. The top ten emerging threats are listed below.

What are the TOP 10 emerging cybersecurity threats for 2030*?

1. Supply Chain Compromise of Software Dependencies
2. Skill Shortage
3. Human Error and Exploited Legacy Systems Within Cyber-Physical Ecosystems
4. Exploitation of Unpatched and Out-of-date Systems within the Overwhelmed Cross-sector Tech Ecosystem [New in Top Ten]
5. Rise of Digital Surveillance Authoritarianism / Loss of Privacy
6. Cross-border ICT Service Providers as a Single Point of Failure
7. Advanced Disinformation / Influence Operations (IO) Campaigns
8. Rise of Advanced Hybrid Threats
9. Abuse of AI
10. Physical Impact of Natural/Environmental Disruptions on Critical Digital Infrastructure [New in Top Ten]

In 2022 ENISA also organized the first edition of ThreatHunt 2030 , the first conference on cybersecurity foresight in Europe which attracted more than 120 experts across EU MS and EUIBAs. The second edition Threathunt 2030 took in September 2023. For more information please contact the ENISA foresight team.

* Updated in March 2024.