Cybersecurity

Hacking for Defense to solve national security challenges

The velocity and complexity of our national security threats grows daily. Today, a “bad guy” can use Bitcoin to buy an Amazon gift card and then use it to buy a commercial drone for less than $1,000. That drone can then be modified to carry and drop small explosive or biochemical ordnance (or both). Using impressionable young recruits found in gaming chatrooms, the bad guy can rehearse his plan in that virtual environment and then execute it globally in a distributed operation.

Our response to that scenario involves the U.S. government’s requirements, budgeting, and acquisition processes, which are largely disconnected, dysfunctional, and often disheartening – times a bajillion.