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WEST 2018: Cybersecurity Should Be ‘Uncompromising’

The Department of Defense wants to ensure that any industry partners and suppliers it works with follow proper cyber hygiene practices to protect information and data.

“In terms of protecting our data and protecting their information, there should be this standard,” Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said during his opening keynote of WEST 2018, a conference cohosted by the AFCEA and U.S. Naval Institute.

He noted he envisions a time when partners and providers would sign a cyber disclosure statement noting that everyone you do business with is secure.

“We need to get to that level because your secrets, our secrets, are exposed…we want the bar to be so high that it becomes a condition of doing business,” he said.

Shanahan later added: “When I think of things like safety, cyber falls into that category … as being one of those things that should be uncompromising,”

Shanahan’s comments come as the U.S. military grapples with policy changes around wearable technologies and mobile devices following reports that fitness app Strava unwittingly revealed the outlines of U.S. military bases and troop activity around the world.

“I’m guilty; I used to wear a Fitbit until this last week,” he said, adding that “we leave digital footprints all over the place.”

Shanahan noted that this intense focus on cybersecurity and cyber hygiene will require a cultural shift.

Watch Shanahan’s full keynote here:

A10 at WEST 2018

At WEST 2018, A10 showcased how the military and government agencies can protect their networks from encrypted threats and how to achieve secure application management in a multi-cloud world.

With A10 Thunder SSLi, agencies can break and inspect SSL/TLS traffic that adversaries exploit to obfuscate attacks. And they can do so without affecting performance. Thunder SSLi is FIPS-validated and features 100 GbE interfaces and integrated HSM(s).

Wel also highlighted how to achieve secure application management in a multi-cloud world with A10 Harmony Controller, Lightning ADC and Thunder ADC, which provide visibility, agility and control over applications in multiple and hybrid clouds and on-premise.

If you’d like to learn more about how our solutions help military and government agencies root out encrypted threats and regain control of their multi-cloud environments, request a live demo.