Cybersecurity requires robust intelligence

It is no secret that to defend our critical infrastructure from the threats emanating from cyberspace requires cyber intelligence. Malicious cyber actors with a plethora of motivations launch cyberattacks continuously.  Many individuals and organizations do not realize that in 2012 on average there were more than 50 new strains of malware released every minute. Detecting this malware, creating a detection signature, developing new rules for our firewalls or adapting our intrusion detection sensors are reactive in nature.

Cyber intelligence is what allows our reactive posture to be changed and moved to a much more proactive approach.  However, the current way our intelligence community is structured and our predisposition to put intelligence into compartments could actually hinder our efforts to defend the cyber domain. There is a growing understanding that physical aspects of intelligence collections are directly applicable to the intelligence that supports operations in the cyber domain.

“Cyber Intelligence is the stratum that ties legacy approaches used for threats in the physical domain to the threats in the ethereal. Industries and Governments require key information at their fingertips to make critical decisions, cyber intelligence provides that ability for decision makers,” said Richard Moore, a financial industry security professional. 

As those on Capitol Hill work on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, (CISPA) the clock continues to tick and we see more malware released, more attacks on our critical infrastructure and theft of intellectual property that impacts our economy and national security. Whatever gets passed won’t be perfect and with the pace of change in the cyber environment it will become inadequate quickly, but it is a critical step that we need to take. We need lawmakers to get it done now before another successful cyberattack.