Lessons from the Strategic Corporal
Antoine Lemay, Sylvain P. Leblanc, Tiago de Jesus · 2015
With the rise of cyber espionage the role of cyber incident responders is becoming more complex, but the personnel profile of incident handlers has remained constant. In this new environment, the strategic position of companies is being affected by operation personnel, including cyber incident responders, who have little to no awareness of the strategic implications of their technical decisions. In recent decades, the military has gone through a similar situation and has dubbed this new reality the "Strategic Corporal". This paper analyzes cyber incident response through the theoretical framework of the Strategic Corporal to argue that today's cyber incident responders fit that profile. The paper looks at three solutions put forward by the military, namely training, communication of the commander's intent and embracing decentralization, and shows that these are viable solutions to make cyber incident responders ready to meet the current challenge.