Constructing the Future in and of Cyberbiosecurity: Cyber-Bio Convergence and (In)Security Imaginaries

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Perceptions of cyberattacks leading to catastrophes and disasters have been integral to processes of securitisation and militarisation of cybersecurity for many years. Recent digitisation processes in life sciences (e.g., biology, biotechnology, pharmaceutical and biomedical domains, among others) have extended such perceptions to the vulnerabilities and dependencies generated by this “cyber-bio” convergence, that may spread diseases, enable the development of biological weapons, or cause deaths. Accordingly, in recent years, “cyberbiosecurity” has emerged as a new field of research and policy analysis to study such cyber-bio risks and develop ways to prevent them through pre-emptive security measures. This article interrogates the construction of the “future” in and of cyberbiosecurity as presented in scholarly literature in the life sciences. It examines the sociotechnical imaginaries of cyber–bio convergence, on one hand, and the (in)security imaginaries of future cyber–bio risks, on the other, as two competing yet interdependent narratives that are mutually co-constitutive. In doing so, the article critiques cyberbiosecurity imaginaries for their limited engagement with ontological and epistemological questions posed by cyber-bio infrastructures as complex informational systems. It argues that cyber-bio convergence introduces an informationalist challenge that reconfigures core assumptions about actancy, referent objects, and uncertainity, in security analysis, with potential transformative implications for cybersecurity scholarship and governance.