Survival through transformation: towards adaptive security

For more than 20 years, I have been conducting research in information security. In recent years, like many of my colleagues, I have increasingly found myself asking a fundamental question: is it possible, in principle, to ensure the security of complex socio-technical systems – companies, organisations, and states – in a world where the rules of the game change faster than we can make sense of them?

For a long time, the paradigm of security was shaped by the logic of ‘fortress walls’: anticipate risks, strengthen the perimeter, prevent intrusion, and repel an attack. This logic worked – or, at least, appeared sufficient – while the world remained complex, yet comparatively predictable. The twenty-first century has proved otherwise.

A sobering realisation emerged: it is impossible to defend against everything. Resilience therefore moved to the centre of the discussion – the capacity of a system to restore its critical functions after disruption.

Yet resilience, too, has proved insufficient. In a volatile environment, returning to a previous state often becomes not a solution, but a dead end. If the surrounding conditions are continuously shifting, the pursuit of stability can begin to undermine the system itself.

It was from this recognition – at the intersection of complexity theory, cybernetics, synergetics, and adaptive systems theory – that the concept of transmorphance emerged, the central idea of our article Adaptive Security: Strategic Principles for Complex Socio-Technical Systems. Transmorphance is the ability of complex systems to survive and develop by adapting to change – altering their structure and modes of operation – without losing their identity.

It is not a matter of ‘withstanding at any cost’, but of transforming while remaining oneself. Security, in this sense, is not a wall, but a capacity for directed development.

In the article, we propose a framework comprising six strategic directions for strengthening adaptive potential: entropy management, the stimulation of evolutionary dynamics, the expansion of the resource base, the development of transformative capacities, the reinforcement of self-referential governance, and the optimisation of inter-system integration. This is not a checklist of measures, but a map of principles through which a system expands its capacity to reconfigure itself legitimately and in a managed way.

The framework is applicable at any scale – from strategic governance of national security under hybrid threats to the long-term resilience planning of local communities. Rather than exhausting resources in endless risk prediction and the reinforcement of ‘walls’, we suggest investing in the growth of adaptive potential. In doing so, uncertainty ceases to be merely a threat, and becomes a medium for development.

The main conclusion is simple: in a world where uncertainty has become the norm, security is not the preservation of form, nor a cult of stability, nor the restoration of the past. It is the capacity to evolve without losing oneself.

About the author

I am a researcher in systemic security and sustainability, with a PhD in Technical Sciences (Information Security). I am currently pursuing a Doctor of Science (DSc) at the Pukhov Institute for Modelling in Energy Engineering, Kyiv, Ukraine. My academic interests lie at the intersection of complexity theory, synergetics, and cybernetics.

Alongside my academic work, I serve as Director of Digital Technologies and Information Security at System Capital Management, one of the largest financial and industrial holding companies in Ukraine. I also founded the Security Studies and Research Centre, an independent initiative advancing interdisciplinary research in security science.

My research seeks to connect rigorous scientific inquiry with the unpredictable dynamics of real-world systems. A practical lesson from my own work is that security science is, by its nature, interdisciplinary. As the world becomes ever more interconnected, it is worth learning to recognise unifying principles where others see only fragments.

Publishing in Royal Society Open Science proved to be an example of genuinely high-quality scientific communication. The editorial process helped refine complex ideas for a broader audience without diminishing their depth – an honest and productive dialogue, focused on clarity, and on the value the research can offer to its readers.

Read the full article to find out more. Visit the journal website for more information on how to submit your own work, and for more information on the Science, Society and Policy section.