Bridging the Gap: Delivering Cybersecurity to High-Risk Actors
In recent years, cyber tools have increasingly become vectors for transnational repression. Industry reporting indicates a growing and global pattern of state-sponsored cyber activity, often using commercial spyware, that reaches across borders to target specific sectors of civil society. Journalists, dissidents and human rights defenders among others have been particularly impacted by activity seeking to compromise organisational networks, personal accounts and devices of individuals for surveillance, monitoring and data collection.
Complementing the work of the UK-France led Pall Mall Process, on 12 March 2025, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in partnership with Common Good Cyber led by the Global Cyber Alliance, convened a meeting dedicated to coordinating cybersecurity support for communities at risk of digital transnational repression. 80 attendees from government, industry, foundations and civil society organisations joined to discuss how to deliver cybersecurity to high-risk actors.
The UK and its international partners are committed to tackling transnational repression in all its forms and this convening responds to an increasingly urgent need for collaborative multistakeholder action to scale the delivery of technical assistance and capacity building to high-risk civil society actors across the globe.
This event focused on three core areas:
- Targeting support to communities at highest risk. Enhancing collaboration on threat intelligence sharing to ensure interventions reach those in greatest need, especially in the Global South.
- Expanding assistance and capacity. Understand and address gaps in cybersecurity resources provided by cybersecurity nonprofits to high-risk communities.
- Strategic support for cybersecurity nonprofits. Explore how a coordinated funding mechanism could streamline resources, reduce duplication among donors, and enable nonprofits to scale their efforts, maximising support for vulnerable groups worldwide.
