Vitalik: The endgame of cybersecurity will favor defense; over 1% of GDP should be invested in strengthening cyber and biological security.

Vitalik Buterin (@VitalikButerin) posted on X that he did not predict defense would automatically outpace offense, but rather believes cybersecurity will ultimately reach an endgame favorable to defense, although the transition will be difficult. He pointed out that "good guys discovering vulnerabilities in deployed software before bad guys" does not constitute a defense-biased game. To truly shift the balance toward defense, deeper methodological changes are required, including formal verification and aggressively shrinking the trusted computing base (TCB), which are only just beginning. He also noted that this is a major reason for his support of slowing or pausing AI development, and urged dedicating over 1% of GDP to hardening cybersecurity, biosecurity, and the physical world.