Two of the people said the overall goal of the soon-to-be-released cyber strategy was to draw on the private sector’s innovation, capabilities and resources to boost U.S. military hacking efforts. Defense tech startups and leading Silicon Valley firms now regularly build cutting-edge digital tools of interest to the military — unlike in decades past, when the Pentagon drove defense innovation.
“The goal is to build an ecosystem where we can give contractors these missions, and they can scale the operations of the U.S. government,” said the first person, who, like the others, was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the strategy.
The strategy would formally align the Pentagon with the Trump administration’s shift toward prioritizing digital offense, which began in the spring and is already underway elsewhere in the government.
The White House made cyber offense a top priority in its national cyber strategy released this March and pledged to create “new incentives” for security and tech firms to help it identify and disrupt foreign hackers. And last month, President Donald Trump issued a memo paving the way for vetted tech companies to conduct state-approved cyberattacks on cybercriminals for the first time.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly referred POLITICO to the Pentagon. The Pentagon declined to comment.
The Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, Katie Sutton, first announced at a congressional hearing in April that the Pentagon was working on an updated cyber strategy. The last DOD cyber strategy was released under the Biden administration in 2023. Sutton said weeks later at an industry event that the strategy would be released this summer and would outline steps to impose “sharper consequences” on foreign hackers who target U.S. networks.
The previous strategy, first obtained by POLITICO in 2023, began expanding work with the private sector to address threats to critical systems, but stopped short of calling on companies to provide hacking tools or directly partake in efforts to disrupt foreign networks. It also laid out steps to enhance cyber defense efforts with international allies.
Click Here For The Original Source.
