MITRE 360 March
March 2025
While the geopolitical game has changed since we got our start, MITRE’s role as technical partners to the U.S. and our allies has not. Working from sites around the world, we bring an unbiased, data-driven approach to aid our government sponsors and international partners in solving complex national security challenges.
A few of the ways we’re doing it: Modernizing nuclear command, control, and communications; revolutionizing combat with AI; empowering multi-domain military operations. We don’t do this alone. We collaborate with our government sponsors and international partners to solve the seemingly impossible.
How we got here: When our nation faced a growing nuclear threat during the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force created our nation’s first air defense system, the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment—SAGE, for short—and tasked MITRE with maintaining it. SAGE cemented MITRE as systems engineering experts with a specialty: securing our nation.
Our unrelenting pursuit of the next challenge propels us to this day—fighting for our nation and our allies, taking on big mission objectives from sea to space. We’re ready for what lies beyond the line of sight.
6-minute read time
INTERNATIONAL IMPACT
Technology-Driven Solutions for Transatlantic Security and Stability
Collective defense was the prevailing theme at last month’s Munich Security Conference, which convened the U.S. vice president, heads of state, foreign ministers, and senior NATO and U.S. officials. MITRE hosted a roundtable, laying out technology-centered solutions in support of transatlantic defense plans.
What’s next: In partnership with the Atlantic Council, we’re using mission engineering and advanced modeling and simulation tools to analyze NATO’s defense options. This includes evaluating ways to harden the Alliance’s eastern flank and measuring the value of multidomain operations.
MITRE’s one-of-a-kind role: Given MITRE’s long history and experience supporting U.S. defense and intelligence communities, we’re uniquely positioned to engage in this effort.
OUR CULTURE IN ACTION
Global Strategist Moves at the Speed of Trust
While most people chat with neighbors about traffic and weather, MITRE’s Lisa Bembenick prefers geopolitical strategy and global stability. One such driveway conversation evolved into MITRE’s first-ever invitation to the Munich Security Conference last year and a seat at the table last month.
A foil for engineers: Bembenick’s ability to strike up conversations anytime, anyplace is testament to her expertise as a communicator and collaborator. Complementing her colleagues’ technical and mission engineering chops, she enables MITRE’s national security division to go farther, faster.
QUOTABLE
Keoki Jackson, Sc.D., senior vice president, general manager, MITRE National Security Sector, at the Munich Security Conference. On the eve of the conference, both U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called for urgent increases in NATO member countries’ defense spending.
GLOBAL CYBERSECURITY IMPACT
Building Strong Cyber Defenses for Partner Nations
Cyber attacks continue to rock our foreign allies, destabilizing government systems in their wake. A knock on them is a knock on the U.S., which is why our cyber capacity building efforts remain strongly aligned with the new administration’s America First policy.
In collaboration with the U.S. State Department, MITRE offers developing partner nations expertise in 5G and cyber engagements through training, technology, and technical guidance.
Bottom line: Strong international cyber capacity bolsters U.S. national security
PIN DROP
Post-Quantum Cryptography Experts Touch Down in Bulgaria
These days, it’s impossible to read a tech headline that doesn’t mention quantum computers. As organizations—including us—race to reap the benefits of their advanced capabilities, we’re also focused on combatting the future threats quantum computers pose. To address prospective vulnerabilities, MITRE mobilized the best and brightest in the field—IBM Quantum, Microsoft, PQShield, SandboxAQ, and University of Waterloo—to create the Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Coalition.
From March 26-28, the community will gather in Bulgaria for Real World PQC 2025, an event featuring strategic global discussions about how to shape the future of cryptographic security in the quantum era.
Bottom line: The work is complex, but the coalition’s goal is simple: drive progress toward broader understanding and public adoption of PQC.
ALPHABET SOUP
ATT&CK—Cyber Defenders Unite!
Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge
Users in more than 190 countries access MITRE ATT&CK®—a global knowledge base of cyber adversary behavior. This free online data-sharing platform—considered “foundational” to the worldwide cybersecurity community—enables any size organization to identify attackers by their tactics and techniques and outmaneuver cyber intruders.
Keeping up with the bad guys: ATT&CK’s newest update (version 17) goes live on April 22. It will include content related to the ESXi hypervisor, broad improvements to defenses, and updates to techniques, groups, and software across the framework.