Stanley A. McChrystal Quotes

The long-standing policy of allowing officials access to intelligence on a ‘need to know’ basis should be abandoned.

I promise you, the next time there is attack on - an attack on this country, the first thing people are going to want to know is, why didn't we know about it and why didn't we stop it? And the answer better not be because we didn't have access to records or information that would have allowed us to identify these killers before they attacked.

It was immediately clear to me that security was a cross-cutting issue, so rather than dividing the space up in parallel with each of the other areas, I wanted security cut across the areas in addition to having its own content.

For four years, I listened to stories of intelligence failures, and it wasn't due to incompetence of anyone in the system, but that the system is so arcane.

There are security risks not only from information falling into the wrong hands, but also from information failing to find its way into the right hands. The government’s current approach to protecting classified information does not recognize this risk from failing to share

The safety and security of the nation depends more so than ever before on intelligence.

I don't expect an overnight change of all desktops to what the US Military used to call B3 level security. And even that would not stop users from shooting themselves into the foot.

While there have been terrific advances in the state of technology around heuristics, behavior blocking, and things like that, technology is only a part of the approach to solving the problem with the more important aspect involving putting the right process in place.

I learned the technology and tradecraft of electronic security in self defense, with a lot of expert help.

Since the tragedies, the Department of Homeland Security was established to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, and most importantly, to share intelligence information among government agencies and departments.

What we are seeing now is customers shifting their attention from security products like firewalls and intrusion sensors, to the policies that need to be in place, and the technologies that help them enforce policy compliance.

You have to have as many defences in place as you possibly can. But even then of course - and it's important to stress this - you cannot guarantee being able to prevent every attack or every kind of attack.

I believe that reforming our intelligence community is one of the most important things that we can do in order to ensure that our country is in fact safer, stronger and wiser.

I've met some smart people doing security work in the government, and they're starting to reach out to a broader audience, which I think is a good thing.

The great lesson of 9/11 is that improper hoarding of information can cost lives and harm national security.

The FBI didn’t have a mechanism to know what it knew.

Intelligence without counter-intelligence is useless.

The security [of European national is dependent on the effective intelligence of their neighbors.

Secrecy is for losers. For people who do not know how important the information really is.

We talk a lot about operational control, and that's having a better understanding of who's coming in and who's leaving, what the threat really is. We're never really going to get that.

Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy and employ almost half of the working population. Yet because of their size, they rarely have access to the same information security resources as large firms.

Too many public and private entities simply don't take advantage of tools already at their disposal to protect themselves from hackers. No amount of information sharing will help solve that problem.

After the investigation of Operation Aurora, the cyberattack on Google from within China that was revealed in 2010, I realized a completely new type of security strategy and technology was needed.

Safety is not just about trying really hard and being really careful. You have to design technology that makes it possible for a computer to be safe.

Any security issues, you have to be very hands on to really understand what's the exact problem, and then take quick action.