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“Businesses and government share a collective responsibility to collaborate on preventing cyberattacks that could have a devastating impact or prompt national or global crises.”

Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM, in his LinkedIn article, The Time To Prioritize Cybersecurity Is Now after participating in the August 25 White House summit with President Biden and private sector peers

There is an old saying with a timeless instruction: "If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together." As Cybersecurity Awareness Month kicks into high gear, it’s critical to remember the key role that public / private partnership and collaboration will play in the security of our critical infrastructure.

As the former chief information officer (CIO) for the Department of Defense (DoD), I’ve thought a lot about the unique benefits that focused collaboration can bring. During my tenure, I collaborated with my team and across the armed forces to create a unified information management and technology vision for the Department. But technology was the easy part. When it came to cybersecurity, I knew that the latest technologies weren’t the only answer. The constantly changing, interconnected and ubiquitous nature of the cybersecurity challenge also requires a change in culture.

A culture of cybersecurity acknowledges the need for a ​holistic approach where the related goals of all participating parties (public and private sectors in this instance) are complementary and interdependent. The idea of collaboration between government and industry, specifically the trust that needs to be built between the two to make that collaboration work, was something that I promoted as DoD CIO. In fact, I created the Information Technology Exchange Program as one of the vehicles to make the process easier and provide a way for each party to understand what the other was doing – and cybersecurity was one of our key focus areas.  

Part of our collective effort must also include the building of a more diverse and enduring cyber workforce. IBM publicly committed to this goal during the August 25 White House summit with President Biden and our private sector peers to discuss the ‘whole-of-nation’ effort needed to address cybersecurity threats. Our initiatives include partnership with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and retraining populations like Veterans to help grow the cybersecurity workforce and create new economic opportunity in communities across the U.S.

Also, as part of our commitment to partnership and collaboration, IBM recently joined the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), the organization that launched Cybersecurity Awareness Month 18 years ago and has since become a 365-days a year demonstration of the holistic public / private partnership approach we need to address today’s cybersecurity challenges.

In the words of Jen Easterly, head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), at this year's National Cybersecurity Summit, “cybersecurity is a team sport.” Let’s work together to build a culture of cybersecurity that protects and defends our nation’s critical infrastructure today and tomorrow.