Retired Colonel Prof. (Dr.) Don Welch, the Chief Information Security Officer, and Acting CIO and VP for Penn State, an Affiliate Professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology as well as the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science based in the United States participate in Risk Roundup to discuss Cyber Warfare.
Cyber Warfare
Along with geospace, aquaspace, and space, cyberspace (CAGS) is a contested common. Its use as a battleground to conduct war is rapidly intensifying. This changing nature and landscape of warfare where emerging cyberweapons have become more destructive than real battlefield weapons are becoming a cause of great concern. Keeping up with the rapidly growing complexity of the exploding war in cyberspace is a challenge facing not only for nations military, but also individuals and entities across nations: its government, industries, organizations, and academia (NGIOA).
The reason is cyberspace is the only domain that is entirely human-made and digital in nature. It has been created, maintained, owned, and operated both by public and private stakeholders across nations. It is continually changing and evolving in response to technology transformation and is not being subject to any geopolitical or natural boundaries. Moreover, the information and electronic payloads are deployed instantaneously between any point of origin and any destination connected through the electromagnetic spectrum. Since data and information travel in the form of numerous digitalized fragments through unpredictable routings before being reconstituted at their destination, it opens up multiple points of security vulnerabilities.
As seen, cyber warfare is not geographically rooted anymore. It has reached the contested commons of cyberspace and targeting individuals and entities across nations: its government, industries, organizations, and academia. When practically everything that happens in the geospace is being mirrored in cyberspace, we are opening vulnerabilities on a level that is not comprehensible. This is primarily a cause of concern for national security planners and strategists, especially when propaganda, espionage, investigation, targeting, and, to an unknown extent, warfare itself.
So, as we evaluate the ongoing cyberwarfare getting integrated with artificial intelligence, and its scope of overall entanglement with geospace, aquaspace, and space; the anonymity of enemy soldiers in the cyber domain; and their leveling of attack capabilities, we are entering an era where it seems a new paradigm of cyber conflict and warfare management seems essential.
This vicious power struggle raging on in cyberspace, this new cyber battleground is full of unknowns, including major players, minor players, rules of war, and reasons for war. In these rapidly expanding cyber- battlefields, the war casualties have been quietly piling up. It seems every nation: its government, industries, organizations, and academia (NGIOA) has been hit and is at risk of being hit. No one is being spared, including common citizens. That brings us to an important question, is any nation prepared for this new warfare reality?
The time is now to discuss the complex challenges of cyber-warfare
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About the Guest
Prof. (Dr.) Don Welch is the Chief Information Security Officer and Acting CIO and VP for Penn State. He is also an Affiliate Professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology as well as the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Previous to Penn State, he was the CISO for the University of Michigan including all campuses and the Health System. He was a member of the Michigan Governor’s Cyber Security Advisory Council and was a co-author of Michigan’s Cyber Security Strategic Plan.
He was the CEO of Merit Network from 2006 to 2014. He received numerous awards to include being named a Champion of Change by the White House, Top CEO for Michigan, and Leader and Innovator of the Year. He has served on two non-profit boards and as chair of the research and education network association. He has held leadership roles in many committees, conferences, and advisory councils for education, technology, and information security.
Don served as the CTO at H-E-B, a $12B retail/distribution/manufacturing company that operates in Texas and Mexico. Before starting his civilian career, he served in the U. S. Army, retiring as a Colonel and earning the Legion of Merit. His last position was CIO and Professor of Computer Science at West Point. Some of his other Army assignments include tours of duty with the Army’s counterterrorist unit Delta Force and service as the senior human resources manager for the Army’s uniformed information technology workforce. At the start of his Army career, he commanded two light infantry companies and three infantry platoons.
He has a BS from West Point, an MS in Computer Science from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland. He also earned paratrooper wings and the U.S. Army Ranger Tab.
About the Host of Risk Roundup
Jayshree Pandya (née Bhatt), the founder and chief executive officer of Risk Group LLC (www.riskgroupllc.com) is working passionately to define a new security-centric operating system for humanity. Her efforts towards building a strategic security risk analytics platform are to equip the global strategic security community with the tools and culture to collectively imagine the strategic security risks to our future and to define and design a new security-centric operating system for the future of humanity.
About Risk Roundup
Risk Roundup, a global initiative launched by Risk Group, is a security risk reporting for risks emerging from existing and emerging technologies, technology convergence, and transformation happening across cyberspace, aquaspace, geospace, and space. Risk Roundup is released in both audio (Podcast) and video (Webcast) format and is available for subscription at (Risk Group Website, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher Radio, Android, and Risk Group Professional Social Media).
About Risk Group
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