Inoculating the Cyber Network

The Defense Information Systems Agency and its cyber partners need to “start reducing the attack surface” and limiting noise in the new cyber domain, Maj. Gen. Ronnie Hawkins, DISA vice director, said Thursday at AFA’s inaugural CyberFutures Conference, just outside of Washington, D.C. “We need to turn up the game on where we focus,” said Hawkins. That will require more than just sharing information with other federal agencies. “We do a lot of information sharing and very little collaboration. We do a lot of reactive work and not a lot of work on the front end. But there is a lot of intellectual capital out there,” he said. Hawkins said only by sharing tactics, techniques, and procedures with partners at the federal, state, and local levels will the government be able to successfully “inoculate” itself against cyber attacks.