The battle lines in modern warfare extend beyond land, air, sea and space—into cyberspace.

An enemy might be a world away, yet only a few clicks from conducting financial fraud, international espionage and crippling attacks on major corporations.

As the U.S. Department of Defense aims to improve cyber capabilities across its full spectrum of offensive and defense efforts, it is the people, tradecraft and technology that will bring us into this new age of cyber security.

Three cyber experts dish on how they are tackling a new class of threats.

“When it comes to cyber security, diversity is ultimately our best defense. Beyond our computer analysts, we rely on a team with multiple areas of expertise. 

The people defending our systems and platforms can be cultural anthropologists, linguistics experts or behavioral specialists. These combined skillsets help us to interpret intentions, identify patterns and effectively counter cyberattacks. 

Diversity in thought and experience is critical to the cyber security puzzle, as we use all of these perspectives to paint a full picture of the situation at hand and determine the best course of action.” 

- JP Dinh, Information Security Officer

“Looking past the 0s and 1s, cyber threats are still people. Intelligence—understanding the intent, capabilities and tactics of these threats—is the foundation to build resilient defenses and effectively manage enterprise risk. We call this Intelligence Driven Defense®. 

Our methodology turns the tables on the adversaries. Intelligence Driven Defense® includes a seven-step process, which identifies the sequence of events an attacker must take, and shifts the cyber advantage to the defender. 

It only takes one move for the defender to win and break the chain. The attacker has to be right every time.” 

- Eric M. Hutchins, LM Fellow, Chief Intelligence Analyst

“The defense community has already recognized cyber as the fifth domain of war—and our adversaries are turning to robots and unmanned systems as potential weapons as their technology gets more sophisticated. 

All of these changes mean that we need to focus on smarter systems that counter these emerging threats, like cyber capabilities to deter and negate sophisticated threats, such as hostile autonomous platforms. 

For example, we have a system called ICARUS™. It can identify and intercept small drones by using multi-spectral sensors. Once the system detects the drone, it gives you the option of disabling it, or taking control and moving it to a safe area.” 

- Michael Panczenko, Director of Cyber Engineering and Technology