TechNet Cyber 2025 was all about the warfighter this year. The annual event, hosted by AFCEA, brought together experts in digital policy, strategy, operations and communications to discuss the theme “Empowering the Warfighter: Innovate, Integrate, Dominate.”
Running May 6-8 at the Baltimore Convention Center in Maryland, the conference attracted more than 350 exhibitors and thousands of attendees from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Defense Department (DOD), U.S. Cyber Command and GovCon to discuss how technology can best help warfighters meet their missions.
Prioritizing Cybersecurity
Ashley Manning, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy. Photo credit: Laurie DeWitt, Pure Light Images
The Pentagon is putting an emphasis on homeland security through cybersecurity. Ashley Manning, principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for cyber policy, said that DOD is currently working to disrupt the cyber networks that criminal organizations, especially in Central and South American countries, use for cross-border drug trafficking, human smuggling and money laundering.
“We are actively working to disrupt these networks, intercept their communications and dismantle their digital infrastructure,” Manning said. “Integrating cybersecurity and cyber operations into our broader strategy allows us to enhance our ability to protect our nation.”
She also cited threats from farther afield: Russia, Iran and North Korea. “We’re developing a full spectrum of cyber capabilities, both offensive and defensive,” she said. “We must innovate by investing in cutting-edge technologies and creating a culture of creativity within our cyber forces.”
Katie Arrington, who is performing the duties of DOD’s chief information officer, also highlighted cybersecurity, noting the importance of zero trust, Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification and the new Software Fast Track Initiative, which she said would be implemented June 1.
“I don’t believe that investing as much as we do in kinetic is really all that beneficial because we’re in a non-kinetic war,” Arrington said. “We are at war in the cyber realm, in the non-kinetic realm, and if we are not doing our best job in the non-kinetic, then we must use kinetic in response.”
In terms of zero trust, DISA hit a milestone: Its Thunderdome zero-trust architecture passed every key zero-trust exercise. Christopher Barnhurst, deputy director of DISA, credited GovCon’s role in that achievement.
“Dozens of products that are integrated into that design [were provided by our industry partners], and that is now real, and it’s real two years ahead of when the DOD chief information officer said it has to be real for the department,” Barnhurst said.
Making Decisions with Machines
Unsurprisingly, AI and machine learning (ML) were a hot topic at this year’s conference. The technology creating a buzz across the public and private sectors plays a role in defense, too, with Col. Richard Leach, director of intelligence at DISA, emphasizing how it strengthens the cyber threat intelligence network. Amid limited resources, AI and ML can handle some of the more mundane, rote tasks, freeing humans to focus on priority problems.
This supports DOD’s goal of being more proactive than reactive, added Esteban Banda, technical director at DISA’s Program Executive Office Cyber. “The threat intelligence from industry…helps us do a better job with threat attribution, and when we can do that, and we can do that in a quasi-public way, maybe the FBI prosecutes some folks that we catch,” Banda added. “I think that helps with deterrence for us long term.”
With machine-assisted decision-making comes a new focus on the data that drives it.
“One of the areas that we are most concerned about is the idea of information advantage, leading to decision advantage,” said Lt. Gen. David (Todd) Isaacson, director for command, control, communications, and computers/cyber, and chief information officer, J-6, Joint Chiefs of Staff. “It is the idea of structuring and defending and orienting decisions that are factual and informed fully, through machine-enabled decision-making and artificial intelligence that land decision support, that ultimately put the leaders in the most informed decision space in which to operate.”
Facilitating Info Sharing & DevSecOps
Lt. Gen. Susan S. Lawrence, Lt. Gen. Jeth B. Rey and Lt. Gen. David (Todd) Isaacson (l-r) discuss how critical data-centric operations are. Photo credit: Michael Carpenter Photography.
A crucial way of empowering warfighters is through better information sharing among commands and allies, said Rodolfo “Raven” Fuentes, technical director of DISA Europe. The current siloed, disparate networks across theaters hinder progress in DISA’s Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control initiative.
“Within policies, I think we can develop something that’ll allow us to all utilize those same data standards and share information at a faster rate,” Fuentes said. “I think that’ll really get us to where we need to be.”
Another focal point is on DevSecOps. To support that effort, DISA is establishing software factories, a structured, standardized and automated approach to software development similar to an assembly line. Known as the Citadel Software Factory, it has a full authority to operate and is in the highest-security environments.
“We recently got the nod to be the agency enterprise software factory,” said Kyle Saunders, software factory engineer, Command and Control, at DISA.
All of these technologies offer great support and promise for making warfighters stronger than ever, and when it comes to cyber, there are always plenty of new innovations and challenges. We look forward to learning more at TechNet Cyber 2026!