The future of cybersecurity leadership – by Timothy C. Summers, Ph.D.

Defending from unwanted foreign influence and disruption is as old as humanity itself. In 1788, Alexander Hamilton acknowledged that having a massive ocean separating the United States from the rest of the world served as an important factor in America's security. Still, he asserted that improvements in technology would make distant nations into next-door neighbors. In no place or time has his wisdom been more relevant than in the Information Age, which we live in today. To no population is it more accurate than to those in cybersecurity.

To say that we're living in exciting times is an understatement. Over the last 2 decades alone, we've seen catastrophic natural and environmental disasters such as earthquakes and floods (for example, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Haiti earthquake in 2010), mechanical and technological failures (for example, the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill in the...