The first iPhone was released less than 15 years ago, boasting 2G internet and the ability to download a four-minute music video in just a few short hours.

© France’s President Emmanuel Macron changed his phone and number after he was reportedly targeted wit…

At that time, the internet was little more than a collection of blogs and chatrooms and the word ‘ransomware’ was unheard of by all but a small handful of people.

In the few short years since then, human society has undergone one of the most profound and rapid transformations in its history.

Our social existence – from working, shopping and socialising to dating and learning – has increasingly moved online, with each activity leaving a Hansel and Gretel-style trail of data in its wake.

News headlines today feature stories about ‘hack and leak’ operations or ransomware attacks, where hackers paralyse a computer system and hold its information at ransom.

Despite the ubiquity of this digital technology – the sheer volume of the data that we unthinkingly, and often unknowingly, share online and the speed at which it has become ingrained in every aspect of our daily lives, from arranging for food deliveries to organising patient records – international rules and norms governing cyberspace remain too patchy, to the point of rendering them effectively non-existent.

While the anarchy of the early internet was a large part of its appeal, today it represents a significant threat to our security and the global economy.

Indeed, just as we have moved our activities online, so too have hostile states and other malicious actors. Journalists and human rights activists can now be tracked without the need for someone sitting outside their home for hours on end and critical national infrastructure can be brought to its knees without the need for bombs or missiles.

READ MORE: SEPA: 4,000 files stolen in cyber attack on Scotland’s environmental regulator published

This month alone has seen the news dominated by cybercrime – attacks on Microsoft orchestrated by the Chinese state; the hacking and surveillance of the mobile phones of journalists, human rights activists and world leaders; and a series of ransomware attacks…