Born Defense is emerging from stealth to support organizations engaged in the cyber ‘Forever War’, but from within the constraints of the Just War Doctrine.
Born Defense is an investment issuer emerging from stealth with a mission to improve national security. It does not confine itself to the cyber realm but recognizes that cybersecurity is a major, if not primary, focus of its endeavors to improve access to funds for firms in the national security sphere.
An investment issuer is fundamentally different to a venture capital firm. “VC firms are technically a fund,” explains Richard Craven (CEO at Born Defense). It’s all about the money and return on investment, “which is the primary focus at all times.”
An investment issuer, however, in this instance creates the investment (usually shares in the ‘client’ company) and sells those shares to anyone interested. The investors are directly invested in the long term performance of the company because they are part owners. And as a major share owner itself, Born Defense can use its own business and cybersecurity acumen to support the growth of the client company.
The firm believes the world is engaged in a global cyberwar even while academics remain reluctant to define the current adversarial cyber condition as ‘warfare’. Born Defense says this is a Forever War – a conflict with no defined end goal or endgame, shifting targets and enemies, and continuous.
Until recently, suggests Mike Arnold (founder at Born Defense), America has largely sat and watched this conflict. This is changing, he says, “with a broad coalition of everyday Americans now saying, ‘Enough is enough, our goal should be freedom at home and strength through deterrence abroad’.”
That deterrence should not, for the average American, imply the right to hack back. The Born Defense credo is based on the Just War principle – an ethical framework defining when it is reasonable for a nation to go to war and the principles that should apply while at war.
These principles include two primary conditions. Firstly, war must be declared and waged by the nation’s legitimate authority; that is, the government. Secondly, the citizenry must be protected from the effects of war. (The latter raises the Second Amendment with its intention to ensure that citizens within the United States have the right to personal security and resistance against tyranny – even from their own government.)
Just War does not distinguish between cyber and kinetic activity, although kinetic activity can only be undertaken by the legitimate authority. The implication is that, where justified, national governments have the right to deliver ‘strength abroad’ by either means. Indeed, the UK went on record in 2018 with the assertion that it had the legal right to respond to cyberattacks with kinetic force. This isn’t explicitly confirmed by the Just War principles, but is certainly implied.
The government, then, has the right to hack back or bomb back, but the citizenry does not. The citizenry does, however, have the right to protect its freedom – which includes privacy – from everyone. And as the Second Amendment implies, this also means from its own government.
Born Defense asserts that national security is dependent on the ability to succeed in this new Forever War by helping government and government agencies respond to cyberattacks through limiting the effectiveness of attacks at their source and improving local cyber defenses to defend against foreign intrusions and, where and if necessary, own government snooping.
“The mantra we’re adopting around cyber is purely about pulling out technology historically developed for the military and for the agencies, and sanitizing it and commercializing it,” explains Craven. “A Washington lawyer or London lawyer traveling with a laptop internationally, using Wi Fi in hotels around the world, is a massive intelligence grab; and we don’t currently protect that properly.”
Born Security sees a gap in current funding for SMEs. “There’s all sorts of issues around the complete inaccessibility of credit for SMEs in the defense space,” he continues. “We aim to plug that with trade finance – you’ll see a very active company with a widespread national security portfolio.”
It will do this by operating as an investment issuer supporting companies and organizations waging Just War against any aggressor. If Born Defense achieves its goal, the phrase ‘military grade security’ will cease to be an over-optimistic marketing claim and begin to be an accurate statement.
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