In the interconnected era, policy makers can’t afford to lag behind technological change. Cyber security has become a national security issue, and now governance – or lack thereof – is emerging as a challenge to sustaining the growth and innovation spurred by the web. These were the talking points at last week’s MIT Explorations in Cyber International Relations (ECIR) Workshop, which Wikibon’s Dave Vellante, Jeff Kelly and Stu Miniman wrapped up live on theCUBE with their observations on the future of the digital universe.

Tomorrow’s Internet will be a multi-stakeholder environment, according to Vellante, but the road to globally coordinated governance has plenty of bumps. Establishing a set of cohesive and overarching rules for cyberspace will entail unprecedented legal and security challenges that may take decades to overcome, Kelly comments, but the transition is necessary for the continued advancement of information technology.

The current governance structure, upheld by the government-funded Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), is geared towards the interests of U.S.-based tech companies and organizations, he elaborates. With the rest of the world eyeing a more prominent role, the industry will have to give up its advantageous position for the sake of long term growth. “The way you’re gonna do that, to some degree, is by focusing on potential commerce that can be done throughout the world by U.S.-based companies if they really buy into this multilateral approach,” Kelly says. Failing to do so could potentially fracture the web and hurt the bottom line of top American firms.

Security is also becoming a bigger priority as governance moves up the agenda, leading more organizations to reevaluate their traditional network-centric models.

“Security has been one of those really high-priority issues. We understand that people need to worry about security, but…they tend to just do the minimum to get by,” Miniman notes. “This whole mindset of starting with the data, I think it’s a good trend and it has a completely different group of actors and budgets involved, so maybe that can start to really address some of the security issues at a fundamental level.”

Data privacy carries a lot of geopolitical weight in today’s world, as the NSA spying scandal helped demonstrate, and the same is true for governance. There is no shortage of solutions designed to help enterprises navigate the increasingly hazardous digital landscape, but the way Vellante sees it, user behavior and policy enforcement are what ultimately determine security success. For this reason, Kelly stresses the importance of bringing decision makers up to speed on the threats faced by their organizations and the steps they need to take in order to stay ahead of hackers.

Click on the video below to hear the full discussion below: