A Matt Devost post on Putin’s OODA Loop has stood the test of time. I was reminded of that when I noticed many friends were emailing and tweeting each other links to his post, which is still hot after 2 years. Good posts, like good ideas, are worth reading no matter when they were produced.
The post on Putin’s OODA Loop is titled
Putin’s Cyber OODA Loop is Tighter Than Yours
It is pretty clear why there is interest in Putin’s OODA Loop. He and those he surrounds himself with have just executed a very complex, highly sophisticated attack against supply chains leveraging the software build process of Solar Winds, resulting in a massive espionage bonanza for Russia.
The cleanup required after this espionage attack is massive and is still underway. It will be a long time before we know the impact of this. But there are lessons we can learn already.
From Matt’s Post:
Putin’s Cyber OODA Loop is Tighter Than Yours
On the action to reaction spectrum, Putin is clearly winning the cyber war and operating with a tighter cyber OODA Loop. Given the lack of norms, Putin is willing to explore the full spectrum of information warfare including using common technology platforms to run influence operations. Putin’s statements on cyber norms comes in the same week that former Director of National Intelligence ceded the U.S. 2016 presidential election to him by claiming that Russian cyber operations changed the outcome of the election in stating that “Of course, the Russian effort affected the outcome. Surprising even themselves, they swung the election to a Trump win.” If true, modest cyber attacks have successfully enabled the first “Trust War” and are undermining the foundation of democratic societies.
In the traditional OODA Loop domain of fighter pilot dogfights, Boyd was infamous for being able to out-OODA his opponents within 40 seconds and Putin is demonstrating a cyber agility that should concern even the most skeptical national security experts.
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