Cyber Acquisition: Policy Changes to Drive Innovation in Response to Accelerating Threats in Cyberspace

Abstract

The United States of America faces great risk in the cyber domain because our adversaries are growing bolder, increasing in number, improving their capabilities, and doing so rapidly. Meanwhile, the associated technologies are evolving so quickly that progress to harden and secure this domain is ephemeral, as systems reach obsolescence in just a few years and revolutionary paradigm shifts, such as cloud computing and ubiquitous mobile devices, can pull the rug out from the best laid defensive planning by introducing entirely new regimes of operations. Contemplating these facts in the context of Department of Defense acquisitions is particularly sobering, because many cyber capabilities, bought within the traditional acquisition framework, may be of limited usefulness by the time that they are delivered to the warfighters. Thus, it is a strategic imperative to improve DoD acquisitions pertaining to cyber capabilities. This paper proposes novel ideas and a framework for addressing these challenges.