Fallon: Winning Cyber Battles Without Fighting
ASP Board Member, ADM William “Fox” Fallon, USN (Ret.) wrote in Time about understanding the issues involved in cyber security.
ADM Fallon noted:
In military operations, good leaders never make a move without the best available intelligence and a strong sense of situational awareness. To do otherwise is tantamount to flying blind, something a good pilot or business leader should avoid. Unfortunately, too many leaders of industry and commerce seem to be flying blind in today’s cyber domain.
He said:
“The Cyber-readiness Reality Check,” an independent survey recently commissioned by my company, CounterTack, Inc., reveals that more than one-third of cyber security executives at companies with revenues greater than $100 million are unable to see an attack once it finds its way inside the perimeter of their systems.
This lack of awareness may help to explain why only about half believe they’ve been targeted by advanced threats within the past year, despite industry data showing the number of these organizations under attack is much closer to 100%.
He concluded by saying:
Once you know where your enemies are and what they’re doing, you’ll find the best defense is a pro-active posture – one that enables you to understand, isolate, avoid and deflect – or even deceive – your attackers.
The ancient Chinese military general and author of “The Art of War,” Sun Tzu once said, “It is best to win without fighting.“ I couldn’t agree more.
You can read the full article here.
Fox Fallon served as commander of U.S. Pacific Command from 2005 to 2007, and U.S. Central Command from 2007 to 2008. He is now chairman of the board of CounterTack, Inc.
