The Pentagon's 2023 strategy: enhance cybersecurity for allied countries and defend critical infrastructure

The DoD released an unclassified summary of its 2023 cybersecurity strategy this week, outlining plans for both offensive and defensive efforts. One of the main objectives of the Cybersecurity Strategy 2023 is to enhance the cybersecurity capabilities of allied and partner countries, as well as increase collective resilience against cyber attacks. This includes building partners' capabilities and expanding their access to cybersecurity infrastructure, as well as helping them grow their cybersecurity workforce through training events and exercises. Partners can also be directly assisted in developing their capabilities by providing features they need but don't have.

Defend the nation and critical infrastructure

Another important goal of the cybersecurity strategy is the defense of the nation and its critical infrastructure. This not only concerns effective defense, but also the disarticulation and degradation of the capabilities and infrastructure of threat actors. The Pentagon will also focus on DoD cyber network security and leverage cyberspace operations to generate asymmetric advantage, noting that China and Russia have "embraced malicious cyber activity as a means to counter U.S. conventional military power and degrade capability of the Joint Forces". Additionally, the DoD wants its efforts to have a long-term impact.

DoD statements

“We will optimize the organization, training and equipping of the cyberspace operations forces and cybersecurity forces maintained by the Service. We will ensure the availability of timely and actionable intelligence in support of cyberspace operations and explore the intersection between emerging technologies and cyber capabilities. We will foster a culture of cybersecurity and cyber awareness by investing in the education, training and knowledge development of personnel throughout the Defense organization," the DoD said in its summary.

Pentagon: "Hack the Pentagon" to improve cybersecurity

Earlier this year, the DoD announced the launch of a new website called "Hack the Pentagon," the goal of which is to help its organizations launch bug bounty programs and recruit security researchers. So far, the Pentagon has carried out more than 40 bug bounty projects, including "Hack the Pentagon", "Hack the Air Force", "Hack the Army", "Hack the Marine Corps", "Hack the Defense Travel System", " Hack DHS" and "Hack US".