Driving cyber defense innovation through automation, speed, scale and security
The defensive cyber landscape is more dynamic and complex than ever, with threats evolving in sophistication and scale. Ensuring mission success requires innovative solutions that prioritize automation, speed, scalability, and security.
The Leidos Editorial Team recently spoke with Josh Salmanson, vice president of defensive cyber practice, to discuss his forward-thinking approach to transforming defensive cyber operations. Josh has built a legacy of driving innovation and delivering mission-critical solutions to protect the nation. By providing repeatable solutions and prioritizing alignment with customer needs, he’s dedicated to protecting critical systems with cutting-edge strategies – supporting organizations to stay ahead of evolving threats.
What are your initial priorities as you step into this role, and how do they align with the urgent needs of organizations?
Our initial priorities revolve around two parallel tasks.
First, quickly cataloging and blueprinting the many capabilities in cyberspace that Leidos does well today and aligning them into modular capabilities within the defensive cyber core functions: identify protect, detect, respond, and recover.
Second, we work across Leidos to mature and finalize any in-flight repeatable, high-value offerings as rapidly as possible from our innovation efforts, IRAD projects in our Cyber Accelerator, and solutions from our strategic partners.
By organizing our solutions and practices into consistent, modular units, we can quickly deliver value to organizations of all sizes. Our commitment to packaging current and future solutions in a scalable, easy-to-integrate architecture is designed to ensure customers always have access to the latest defensive cyber capabilities. This approach empowers them to enhance their operations with battle-tested technologies, tactics, techniques, and practices.
Cybersecurity and defensive cyber have become highly complex over the past two decades, often without achieving the expected value in return. Customers expect secure outcomes and higher value solutions by applying the power and speed of today’s technology innovations to deliver true threat-informed, risk-managed, automated solutions that enable their missions from the enterprise to the edge.
Josh Salmanson
Leidos Vice President of Defensive Cyber
How can leveraging automation and repeatable solutions transform the way organizations approach cybersecurity?
Over the 20+ years of my cybersecurity-focused career, three key questions have always driven my approach to managing and overcoming customer challenges.
- First, what do we have to protect?
- Second, what is happening on the networks?
- Third, what do we think is coming next?
While this is an oversimplification, these three things create an ever-increasing amount of data for organizations to deal with -- different formats, types, duplication, quality, and sprawl. Without modular repeatable offerings that provide the right data to the right systems at the right time, and combined with automation capabilities, defenders just can’t keep up any longer.
By leveraging our repeatable offerings approach — designed for speed and focused on enhancing operators' decision-making through noise reduction and a commitment to threat-informed, risk-managed defense — we empower our customers to stay ahead of their adversaries.
What unique perspective do you bring to this role, and how will it help drive innovation and value for defense customers?
I have supported all levels of government in their evolutionary cyber journeys. I led teams at the FBI to rebuild securely after the worst insider threat event in their history and on the heels of 9/11. I have worked on cyber issues in nearly all the civilian agencies, providing offensive and defensive solutions at the Department of Defense, including the standup of U.S. Cyber Command, and worked across the intelligence community as they expanded from on-prem to the cloud.
History and experience are invaluable assets, offering wisdom and context. I’ve leveraged lessons learned to guide customers in shifting direction, achieving success, and unlocking value while managing risks on their journeys.
What role do you see emerging technologies and partnerships playing in the future of cybersecurity, and how are you positioning to lead in this space?
Cybersecurity, when done well, is a team sport. While we excel in engineering, we rely on our technology partners, emerging research from academia, and proven internal and external collaborators to apply innovative approaches and new technologies. This collective effort strengthens our ability to deliver resilient, secure, and high-value solutions with the scalability, availability, reliability, and network-worthiness required for joint success. As an orchestrator of innovation, we must provide the vision and catalyst to bring these elements together for our customer's benefit and our sustained future growth.
