General Michael Hayden: 'The Cyber Cavalry Ain't Coming'

General Michael Hayden: ‘The Cyber Cavalry Ain’t Coming’

Posted: November 12th, 2018

By General Michael Hayden

General Michael V. Hayden is a retired four-star General in the United States Air Force; he served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006-2009 and as Director of the National Security Agency from 1999-2005.

In a recent interview, The Cipher Brief sat down with former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden to talk about global threats, and in particular, cyber threats and efforts to address them, specifically within the private sector. Hayden has famously said before that when it comes to cyber, ‘the cavalry ain’t coming,’ so what does that mean for companies trying to compete against cyber bandits that operate outside anyone’s rule of law?

Hayden expressed some hope after recent statements by National Security Advisor John Bolton, indicating that the U.S. would be taking a more offensive approach to cyber threats, saying that the current Administration is more comfortable working with the private sector than the Obama Administration was, and that there have been indicators that the current administration might be more open to a ‘mutually reinforcing role between government and the private sector’.

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