All communication must be driven from the top down in building a cyber intelligence capability. This begins with executives buying into the idea that multiple sources of information that are consolidated and presented in a manner that impacts their decisions are important. If executives do not understand the foundation of building this capability, then collaboration for a cyber intelligence program will risk only using information from informal communications.

The following are the steps to strategic cyber intelligence collaboration:

1. High-level support for a cyber intelligence capability among executives and communicated to the organization
2. Policy makers and enterprise architects ensuring that collaboration methods are developed and documented
3. Prioritization of information collection requirements
4. Means to aggregate multiple information feeds from the intelligence processes
5. Ability to process information and produce dashboards that help define decision making

Let's take a look at each of the layers and get a better understanding.