Nations are investing heavily in offensive cyber capabilities. The proposed 2026 US defense budget earmarks an additional $1 billion in funding for offensive cyber operations, specifically to the US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM). In 2025, the Department of Defense spent over $14 billion on cyber, with $6.4 billion allocated to offensive operations. An extra billion dollars buys a significant boost in attack capabilities.
You can’t fight a cyberwar without weapons or a budget!
Other nations are also allocating serious amounts of budget, expertise, and other resources towards their offensive cyber capabilities, although they keep it more secretive. China and Russia are also likely devoting obscene amounts to their respective programs.
Offensive cyber investments include the ability to discover severe vulnerabilities faster, establish infrastructures to exploit those weaknesses, and develop tools to continually evolve the capabilities for greater impacts over time across every sector.
Cyber is an asymmetric form of warfare that can act independently to influence foreign policy or combine with traditional kinetic actions as part of a joint strategy. Cyberattack do not require a shared border with targets, can remain stealthy or deniable, and have the power to cripple a nation’s critical infrastructures — communications, transportation, shipping logistics, healthcare, financial systems, government services, power grids, fuel distribution, and food supply chains. The impacts of such attacks are felt by citizens and private companies. No one escapes unscathed. When combined, such attacks can compound to create severe havoc and disruption.
The world of cybersecurity is changing, even if we don’t see exactly what is occurring behind the curtain of global government budgets. As offensive capabilities grow, the ability for cybersecurity to protect the digital ecosystem that we depend upon, is getting exponentially more difficult. Every organization and person are at risk.
Welcome to the new era of cyberwarfare.
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via the inimitable Daniel Stori at Turnoff.US!
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The response to our first LastWatchdog Strategic Reel has been energizing — and telling.
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The post RSAC Strategic Reel: Cyber experts on the front lines unpack ‘Shadow AI,’ ‘Ground Truth’ appeared first on Security Boulevard.