Building effective cyber defenses is a major challenge for defense planners, just as missile defense has been since the original Strategic Defense Initiative. In both realms the offense has the advantage, making effective defense difficult. Missile defense, however, now has several decades of experience producing and fielding new technologies. The Project on Military and Diplomatic History hosted a panel discussion of CSIS experts and Michael Sulmeyer of the Belfer Center on the history of missile defense, its experience in developing new technologies, and what these tell us about the prospects for building effective cyber defenses.

Election Security The Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity held a hearing on the Defense Department’s role in ensuring the U.S. election process is secure from foreign influence. Much of the discussion focused on Russian meddling, which took place in the 2016 presidential election and was expected to continue in future U.S. elections as well as those around the world. Committee members and witnesses agreed that the issue would continue to get worse and that there must be a solution that includes both the government and the private sector, while understanding that each has different interests in terms of national security and profit, respectively. 

Michael Sulmeyer (@sultanofcyber), Director of the Cyber Security Project at the Belfer Center and former Director for Plans and Operations for Cyber Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, talks with Aroop Mukharji (@aroopmukharji) about protecting yourself online, running for office in the age of social media, and cyber security’s “sex appeal.”