Kevin Coleman
July 28, 2016
Are you ready for continuous change? Chances are you're not, or at least you're not as ready as you should be.
I am not talking about looking forward over the next few years and conducting strategic planning. I am talking about coping with the magnitude of continuous change that modern soldiers are required to handle in the cyber environment today. Most of the recommended measures are outdated. That doesn’t help when you are trying to cope with constant change. In an effort to show the rate of change in the cyber environment, I conducted what I call the tip-of-the-iceberg test: I chose a search engine, restricted the results to the past 24 hours, entered a term and examined the results. Below are the results of the five terms I recently ran.
1. Difficult to stay abreast of new technology.
TEST: A web search resulted in 38 pages of new technology.
2. Difficult to stay abreast of new or updated regulations.
TEST: A web search resulted in 34 pages of new regulation.
3. Difficult to stay abreast of new software update listings.
TEST: A web search resulted in 32 pages of new software update listings.
4. Difficult to stay abreast of new or modified vulnerabilities.
TEST: A web search resulted in 24 pages of software vulnerabilities.
5. Difficult to stay abreast of new or modified malware advisories.
TEST: A web search resulted in 19 pages of new or modified malware advisories.
When you look at those figures, it is easy to understand how easy it is to fall behind. In addition, a 2015 report by Symantec identified more than 430 million unique pieces of malware. That equates to nearly 14 unique pieces of new malware being released per second. That is an increase of 36 percent from 2014. Think how difficult it is to keep up with the rate of continuous change in the global cyber domain. Now put that in a military context. This is a huge challenge that we must successfully address.
Keeping up with the pace of change will take a herculean effort. The management challenge will likely be the most challenging area. Many strategic advisers recommend continuous-change readiness programs be implemented as soon as possible. The task of continuous change is especially tricky in today’s cyberthreat environment. Plus, it's about to become more complex due to emerging technology. This requires every organization to adopt a continuous learning philosophy.
To cope with the continuous change in the cyber environment, all organizations should:
Monitor the cyberthreat environment and emerging technologies.
Create a summary email that goes out at least weekly.
Mandate continuous quarterly education, if not monthly, with weekly critical change summaries.
Create a scorecard that tracks the cyber environment with measures specific to different areas of responsibility.
Now for the biggest issue: Some thought leaders have said that as people age, they resist adopting new technologies. I believe that is true for the vast majority of the population. Most of today’s leaders in training are in their early 40s, so they may fall into this category. Perhaps the best place to start is with mandatory training about the changes that must be addressed by the modern military.
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