Amanda Satterwhite, managing director of cyber mission & enablement at Accenture Federal Services, moderated a panel featuring government and industry experts at the Sept. 3 Billington Cybersecurity Summit in Washington, D.C.
The speakers included Lt. Gen. William Hartman, deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command; Peter Ranks, director of the CIA Center for Cyber Intelligence; and Matt Barry, federal chief operating officer at HP Federal.
During this discussion, the panelists focused on proactive defense in the cybersecurity landscape and the role of artificial intelligence in enhancing cyber strategies. They discussed how to get ahead of adversaries and stay on top of the constantly evolving cyber landscape.
Ranks described proactive defense as shifting away from the defender space to understand and intercept adversaries by gathering intelligence on their motivations and capabilities, particularly in less defended sectors. He emphasized the CIA’s role in providing crucial information to partners to disrupt cyber threats.
Hartman aligned proactive defense with persistent engagement.
“We can’t simply wait for adversaries to come to our networks, to steal our information,” he said. “For us, it is a forward-leading strategy . . . getting after the adversary in the foreign space where they operate.”
Barry highlighted the industry’s role in supporting these missions through corporate citizenship and partnerships. He discussed proactive measures such as endpoint security and hardware, and maintaining a secure supply chain.
The speakers also stressed the need for international collaboration in cyber defense. Hartman said the Hunt Forward operations demonstrated the United States’ commitment to its allies, sending teams to assist with defense. State actors view cyber capabilities as critical tools and are unlikely to stop, but collaboration efforts can make it difficult for them to operate, he added.
“You’re not going to dissuade states from trying to use their cyber capabilities,” Ranks said. “They see cyber as a way to level the playing field with other states that have greater capacity in other domains.”
Hartman, Ranks and Barry also spoke about AI in the cyber industry, as the industry is working to build defenses that can detect and counter AI-driven threats, such as deepfakes and compromised outputs.
Ranks noted that while AI offers advantages to threat actors, the scale of investment in defensive AI could outpace offensive developments. However, offense and defense will use open-source and commercially-derived data.
Hartman emphasized the need to retain talent capable of innovating within the government to stay ahead of AI-driven threats.
“For us, AI allows us to spend our time and resources better,” he said. “But it is not just about the technology; it is about the talent. We have young men and women that are coming to the force that want to use AI and that to develop new capabilities, and we have to provide them the resources to do that within the department.”
The panel concluded with a consensus that proactive defense demands a combination of intelligence, industry innovation, collaboration and responsible use of AI to stay ahead of adversaries.