Establishing a cyber intelligence capability is not an easy feat to achieve, as many organizations are different in size, scope, composition, and culture.

Let me use an orchestra as an example. We know that all of the instruments take their cues from the conductor. Although the conductor is the one that is most visible on the stage, they are not the one who is solely in charge of how the orchestra sounds. The conductor interprets the music and conveys how it should sound to the orchestra.

An orchestra is composed of various instruments that can be grouped into families or sections. The conductor guides these sections to create statements or phrases with their lines, bringing out the important parts of a section while other sections soften their voices so that the melody can be heard. Each family of instruments has a leader or two that are responsible for their family of instruments to play in unison with the conductor. Each instrument in the section has to listen across to ensure that one is not overpowering the other. It is this understanding of how an orchestra performs that the phrase everyone on the same sheet of music derives from.

IT operations and IT security operations are no different to an organization trying to perform their functions as an orchestra performing a piece of music. Development to production, projects to operation is the rehearsal. The challenge is whether or not the entirety of an information systems division is in harmony or cacophony, within itself. Integrating cyber intelligence helps us listen across to one another and helps the IT leadership convey their next steps with operations.