Industry Contributions to Offensive Cyber Operations
March 28, 2023 (ARLINGTON, VA)—The Intelligence and National Security Alliance today released a new Intelligence Insights paper, Industry Contributions to U.S. Government Offensive Cyber Operations, that outlines the importance of public/private collaboration in cybersecurity, particularly with respect to how the commercial sector can support U.S. government operations.
Developed by INSA's Cyber Council, the paper finds that the private sector is often subject to the same cyber exploitations as government agencies, and as such, they hold the expertise and technical background to preempt and orchestrate offensive retaliatory measures to cyber threat actors. This type of collaboration can be seen most demonstrably in Ukraine’s response to Russian offensive cyber operations at the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022. The commercial sector’s role in keeping critical civilian infrastructure resilient against cyber operations from the Kremlin proved to be a bellwether of Ukraine’s durability throughout the war.
This type of collaboration, the paper argues, should be the blueprint for strengthening U.S. critical infrastructure. The paper outlines five key recommendations for accomplishing this goal.
- Establishing a Cyber National Guard, to defend targets at the federal, state, and local levels.
- Creating a DOD National Digital Reserve Corps as proposed by legislation in the House of Representatives
- Developing a Corporate Cyber Reserve to allow the private sector to contribute cyber capabilities to government entities.
- Formulating a private sector advisory committee to U.S. Cyber Command
- Organizing a whole-of-nation “Cyber Manhattan Project” designed to harness the expertise of not just the commercial and technology sectors but academia and human capital, as well.
In closing, the paper finds industry support will be essential to defending critical infrastructure and would serve a vital national security interest in this ever-changing threat landscape.
Download a copy of the report.
Media Coverage
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