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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. 

Melissa Hathaway participated in the European Security Forum's Cyber Security Conference 2016 in Krakow Poland. This conference is one of just a few regular public policy conferences devoted to the strategic issues of cyberspace and cybersecurity in Europe. She presented key elements of the Cyber Readiness Index 2.0 and discussed areas for better private-public cooperation.

Director Michael Sulmeyer of the Cyber Security Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs welcomed industry experts Robert Lee, CEO of Dragos Security and former U.S. Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer, and Mudge, founder of the Cyber Independent Testing Laboratory, with previous experience as a DoD official for DARPA and Deputy Director of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects Division, to get to ground truth on this attack and its implications.

Melissa Hathaway gave an overview of the latest developments in cybersecurity from a US and then global perspective—and discussed what is at stake for companies and nations at a Centre for International Governance Innovation Policy Forum.

Implementing complementary government and private sector cyber protection policies remains a challenge. In a recent International Relations and Security Network/Center for Security Studies–sponsored presentation, Explorations in Cyber International Relations Senior Advisor Melissa Hathaway identified five major reasons why governments and their partners are still having trouble developing effective cyber security strategies.

"We seem bent on providing the technological equivalent of the Olympic sport of dressage — high-speed Internet access only for rich people. We're prancing around a core market failure that is undermining the future of our economy. The Internet was supposed to be for everyone."

"The recent Kony2012 viral video offers proof that something special is happening as a result of all this connectedness: digital collaboration has come of age. Garnering 100 million YouTube views in six days — the fastest ever to reach that mark — Kony2012 demonstrated that digital collaboration can create astounding effects not possible just five years ago. Achieving those effects is no accident. While much is made of "emergent collaboration," Kony2012 went viral by design. The Invisible Children, Inc. team that masterminded the campaign comprised veteran media activists and fundraisers pursuing a common enough goal (a criminal's arrest), but using skills and means unique to the digital age...."