00:00Okay, welcome to week seven and the final module of the course on cyber strategy and planning.
00:10In this module, we're going to do two things.
00:14One is we're going to, again, widen and open up the discussion to include the risk to the financial sector.
00:23And we're going to focus on that.
00:25And we're going to focus on the cyber risk vis-a-vis intrusions into the financial sector.
00:33And there's a number of readings that are going to give you some background on the considerations for the financial
00:40sector.
00:40This is an area that if you think about how you might affect another country through the use of cyber
00:50tools, if you will, or cyber capabilities.
00:53The financial district is certainly, the financial sector is certainly one that comes to mind.
00:58Because of all of the obvious reasons about how the more that a country is reliant on its economy, the
01:11more advanced its economy is, the more interconnected it is.
01:14Financially, the more impact this would have on a country's ability to do something.
01:23So you can imagine that, for example, if someone or something, some person, some entity were to get access into,
01:32for example, the database at Wall Street and one of the trading houses there.
01:36And to alter the ability of some of the algorithms in there to make trades or to change the way
01:44that trades are being done or to, for instance, keep a database from being able to trade at all or
01:51to keep an entity from being able to trade.
01:53And to do the things that we do in order to access our resources and our money.
01:59So most of us don't have a drawer underneath our bed that's got hundreds of thousands of dollars in it.
02:05It's all kept in a portfolio somewhere that is really actually X's and O's as opposed to actual gold or
02:17paper money.
02:18So this is a very is an area of great concern.
02:23And it's an area that is concerns the national security of a country, how the your ability to be able
02:30to to operate in the in the in the world and to for your country to be able to make
02:38money and transfer, et cetera, et cetera.
02:40If you think about the way that we do international sanctions normally, if a country is being sanctioned internationally, those
02:48sanctions are economic.
02:50So the theory of the case is that one of the ways that I can affect the behavior of a
02:54country is through the economy, is through affecting their economy.
02:58So that's what this module is is designed to to tease out that conversation.
03:03The other part of this module, week seven, this is the final week of the course, is to do another
03:09case study.
03:10And what we thought we would do is give you a different case study from the one that that we
03:15looked at at the end of the strategy section, which was on the Russian operations against Ukraine.
03:24This case study is going to be on Iranian potential, some historical and then leading to an understanding of what
03:36potentially they could do against global, but specifically in our case, U.S. financial markets.
03:41So again, like the other scenario, it is a scenario that is that is based in reality and just reading
03:51the scenario itself will give you a fairly good idea of what the issues are in this area.
03:58Aside from what we're even doing in the course, they're very well written and I think that you'll really enjoy
04:05working with them.
04:06What we're going to ask you to do in this final core is final module here is to take the
04:13Iranian scenario that we're going to give you or that you're that is that is in the readings here and
04:18and ask you to create two things.
04:23The first thing is to be able to articulate a strategic end state for a for a potentially for operations
04:35that would be against Iran in order to mitigate or ameliorate the effect of their attacks and intrusions into the
04:45financial district.
04:46So the first thing that we're going to do is to articulate a strategic end state.
04:51So go back to the first part of the course again, where we were trying to figure out what it
04:56was we were trying to do.
04:58So that's kind of the first thing that we'd like you to do in this module after you read through
05:03the through that.
05:07And and Dr. Kink will give you more details on this as we go through it.
05:11But the first thing is to articulate a strategic end state and then to come up with an outline for
05:17the kinds of operations.
05:19So the operational plan and again, we're not asking you to write an operational plan, but rather to be able
05:26to articulate the fundamental things that you would want to do in an operation against in this case against Iran
05:34in order to be able to accomplish whatever the strategic end state is that you've articulated at the beginning of
05:40the assignment.
05:41And so intent not to make you an operational planner, but because that takes years and people study this all
05:51the time, you know, in great detail.
05:52That's that's not where we're trying to go.
05:54What we're trying to do is to give you an appreciation of what of what kinds of operational considerations should
06:01be part of a plan to mitigate, hopefully to keep this from happening at all.
06:09In other words, to decrease the risk of any Iranian intrusions into the financial networks and then to be able
06:18to address them as effectively as possible if such an intrusion does occur.
06:25So, again, trying to now you're trying to connect the strategic end state.
06:29What do I want to do with the how?
06:32How am I going to do it?
06:33And again, as I mentioned in earlier modules, those are the two big distinctions that we're going to use here
06:39working in this course between strategy and planning.
06:43Strategy is the articulation of what you want to do.
06:46A plan is what is the articulation of how you're going to do it.
06:51So that will be the assignment here at the end of the course.
06:54And I think that that will wrap up together.
06:56It will hopefully pull together everything that we've done from the beginning of the course, from the very first class
07:03where we talked about the theories of strategy, what a strategy is, all the way through to the second part
07:10of the course, which was in the operational planning side.
07:12What is a plan?
07:13What are the considerations for operational planning?
07:16How do I create a plan?
07:18What is this thing called operational art and why do I care?
07:21And then we talked specifically about the financial sector.
07:26We talked about law.
07:27We talked about the private sector and how all those things meld together with the government, obviously, and the military
07:36and their response to some of these things.
07:38So this is kind of a capstone for you to tie all that together.
07:42And in the meantime, I think you'll find that both of these scenarios, they are accurate.
07:49And I think that they're a really good insight.
07:55They're very informative about the background that goes into both of those.
07:59And these are real world things that are happening today that will get you up to speed on that and
08:03get you to think about how you might advise someone
08:07or you might ultimately find yourself in a position where you're creating some of these strategies and plans with regard
08:15to cyber.
08:15And you have a deeper and better understanding of the considerations that go into making those plans and those strategies.
08:24So it's been my pleasure to introduce you to this information in the course, and I hope you've enjoyed it.
08:30And this is the final module in module week seven.
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