The themes of change and new paradigm dominate the world we experience today and they render former thought processes, planning strategies and information systems obsolete. The fact is we do not have adequate Information Systems – people, processes, infrastructure, data and information technology – in place today to meet the challenges these changes bring.

The focus provided by the battle against world communism and the balance of nuclear terror disappeared in the early 1990s. The smaller, less obvious dangers that remained bred a sense of confidence and well being that, ironically, may have contributed to the terrorist tragedies of three years ago. We became complacent and that has left us unprepared.

The single, massive threat of the Soviet Union has been replaced by a series of smaller, highly destructive threats that are harder to monitor. Terrorists and other criminals are and will remain disruptive and confrontational. Global economic, communications, and financial networks will blur the traditional understanding of national borders. Meanwhile, corporate integration and the world economy will draw international attention to otherwise local financial setbacks or product and resource shortages.

We at Assured Decisions, LLC believe the following areas require the attention of high-tech firms:

• Homeland Defense. Targeted attacks against the US Homeland, from a variety of adversaries, will continue to rise.
• Preventing Technological Surprise. Revolutionary information technology capabilities will be available to friend and foe alike. Each of our industries will have to know and understand accurate assessments of the scientific and technical capabilities of foreign nations and groups and the threats that they pose.
• Precision Warfare. Precision in identifying enemy targets, providing safe ingress and egress routes for our military forces, neutralizing enemy detection and weapons systems, and minimizing or even eliminating collateral damage are important components of our military strategy.
• Crisis Warning and Prevention. The need for intelligence information and sophisticated analysis to anticipate and avert foreign crises and immediate support to day-to-day or minute-to-minute activities will be an ongoing challenge.
• Protecting Intelligence Capabilities. Adversaries will use new, highly effective means to detect and neutralize sensitive clandestine operations or technically sophisticated collection devices. Because of growing government and industry reliance on satellites, these systems and their supporting infrastructures increasingly will become potential high-value targets.

It is now necessary for us to develop ubiquitous Information Security solutions and technologies. The results must enable us to conduct business under the new rules. We must balance this with the continued need to protect the nation’s information assets as well as the rights of our citizens while providing offensive weaponry that allows us to attack when necessary. Up until now companies and government agencies could operate independently, could build “stove pipe” systems and could protect information simply by not sharing it. This behavior minimized the need to fix Information Technology (IT) and Information System (IS) vulnerabilities and rendered such things as Business Assurance, Information System Security Engineering and Risk Management unimportant. As a result, we have a non-secure, vulnerable installed IT base, poor information system security policy and processes, and untrained personnel. These current circumstances, the changing landscape and the heretofore unattended security needs, demand that we concentrate on training personnel in the following skill areas so that we can meet the challenges and remain a global leader:

• Information Assurance Architecture and Security Engineering
• Type Certification and Reusable Solutions
• Community Of Interest Separation and Data Sharing
• Collaboration and Virtual Secure Environments
• Certification and Accreditation

Assured Decisions, LLC is positioned to become a national leader for providing personnel with skills and experience in all segments of the Security Engineering discipline. The charter for the company is directed toward the advancement of Information System Security. We continue to develop methods and frameworks that provide the rigor necessary to effectively deliver first class security services. We are destined to “raise the bar” on what companies and agencies can expect from Information System Security and Security Engineering professionals.