Until I discovered Acalvio, I was doing what most organizations still do today: build walls at the perimeter and prepare to recover when — not if — the adversary breaks through. Firewalls, phishing filters, endpoint protection, and a plan for resiliency. That was the playbook.
But there’s a critical piece missing from that sequence — a tactical middle ground that too many defenders overlook. It’s called deception. And it changes everything.
Deception Is Not a Trick — It’s a Strategy
In military operations, deception isn’t optional. It’s embedded into mission planning at every level. You don’t just defend your position — you mislead the adversary, force them to miscalculate, and position yourself to strike from a place of advantage.
Cybersecurity should be no different. But for years, defenders have focused entirely on building stronger walls or faster incident response, leaving the space in between — the moment of intrusion — unaddressed.
That’s where deception fits. It operates in the moment between breach and impact. And if implemented correctly, it ensures that the moment an attacker steps out of line, they are detected, diverted, and denied.
AI Gives Deception Teeth
Modern deception isn’t just about setting digital traps and hoping they work. With AI behind it, deception becomes intelligent, adaptive, and scalable.
Acalvio’s platform uses artificial intelligence to tailor deceptive assets to the environment — decoys that look, feel, and behave like the real thing. It lays out a minefield of false credentials, fake servers, and synthetic identities that are indistinguishable from production systems. Attackers have no idea they’ve taken the bait until it’s too late.
What happens next is where the real power lies. The moment deception is triggered, defenders gain visibility — not theoretical alerts, but high-confidence signals. You know where the attacker is, how they got there, and what they’re after. From there, you can monitor, contain, engage — and more importantly, prevent damage.
The Adversary Doesn’t Get a Free Run Anymore
Too often, when a threat actor gets inside a network, they’re operating unchallenged for days, even weeks. During that time, they’re mapping your infrastructure, stealing credentials, escalating privileges, and preparing to exfiltrate data or launch ransomware.
Deception puts an end to that. It breaks their confidence. It forces hesitation. It denies freedom of movement.
With deception in place, attackers can no longer assume the authenticity of what they see. Every system, every identity, every path forward could be a trap. And that uncertainty — that doubt — is exactly what defenders need to regain the upper hand.
Strategic Defense Is More Than Firewalls and Forensics
We’ve been conditioned to view cybersecurity in binary terms: keep them out, or clean up after they’ve gotten in. But this mindset ignores what military strategists have long known — success comes from shaping the battlefield before the first shot is fired.
Cyber deception reshapes the terrain. It gives defenders an active role even after perimeter controls are bypassed. And it aligns with what every seasoned commander knows: your enemy’s strength isn’t just in their weapons — it’s in their confidence. Deception strips that away.
This Deception Day, Reclaim the Initiative
Deception isn’t just another layer of defense. It’s the turning point. It’s where the defender stops reacting and starts maneuvering.
So this Deception Day, I challenge every security leader to take a hard look at their playbook. Are you still relying solely on prevention and recovery? Or are you prepared to operate in the middle — where the fight is won?
If you’re not using deception, you’re leaving critical ground undefended.
Authors
Four-Star Admiral James “Sandy” Winnefeld is the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the second highest-ranking officer in the entire United States Armed Forces. A highly decorated leader, his nearly 40-year, celebrated military career includes extensive time as a fighter pilot and as an instructor at TOPGUN before he led at the Pentagon. He was one of the Navy’s best pilots before taking on larger leadership roles and commanding at every level, including serving as an aircraft carrier commander during 9/11.
Winnefeld is one of the nation’s preeminent experts on leadership in the 21st century, national security, and making sense of the current global landscape – including what’s at stake for American business. He shares the fascinating leadership stories that guided his incredible military career, offering audiences a look inside what it takes to lead change and be “combat ready” in today’s business environment.
As vice chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Winnefeld’s responsibilities included strategy and policy, operations, investment, training, and personnel management. He previously served as the commander of both the U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Prior to that, he was director for strategic plans and policy on the Joint Staff, while he concurrently served as the senior member of the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Military Staff Committee. He commanded the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, the United States Sixth Fleet, NATO Joint Command Lisbon, Striking and Support Forces NATO, and the USS Cleveland. During 9/11 he commanded the aircraft carrier the USS Enterprise, and under his leadership, it was one of the first to arrive in the theater of war.
Winnefeld served as an instructor at the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN), the premier fighter pilot school, and flew the F-14 Tomcat on several deployments to the Western Pacific and Arabian Gulf. He also advised Paramount Pictures during the production of the movie Top Gun.
Winnefeld chairs the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and is a frequently published author and a director or advisory board member for public and private companies operating in a broad spectrum of business sectors. He is a Distinguished Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, where he is also a member of the Engineering Hall of Fame. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Winnefeld co-founded SAFEProject.US, a national nonprofit dedicated to helping prevent drug overdose fatalities in the United States. He is co-host of the podcast “The Adrenaline Zone” and the author of Sailing Upwind: Leadership and Risk from TopGun to the Situation Room.
