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The Golden Dome multi-layered missile defense initiative marks an inflection point in national security strategy. Plans are for a comprehensive defense involving constellations of satellites, advanced space-based interceptors and ground-based systems that will detect and defeat ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles before they can threaten the homeland.

I’ve seen many exciting concepts which I believe will deliver incredible functionality. The Golden Dome also has the potential of providing spin-off technologies that will transform militaries of the U.S. and our allies, enabling small unit defense in the age of robotic threats including swarms of high explosive carrying drones.

I have also seen an Achilles’ heel, one that if not contemplated and addressed will put the entire system at risk. I’m talking about cybersecurity of course. Cyber-attacks against components of the system hold the potential of degrading key components of the Golden Dome, potentially rendering the entire system moot.

Operating the Golden Dome will require assured command and control involving many organizations and intelligence operations involving many sensors and systems. All will require instantaneous and always on communications. Interceptor systems will require 100% uptime and reliability and an ability to rapidly communicate, calculate and act. Assessments of ongoing operation will have to be done faster than human thought so additional layers of defense can be brought in as needed to ensure threats are mitigated.

This is all achievable, but only if this massive global system is designed with security from the beginning.

The good news is that system designers can benefit from decades of work in ensuring trust and mitigating threats to space and ground systems. They need only turn to the canon of knowledge established by the security community and engineer the solutions in at the beginning. Here is a short list of lessons in the form of principles:

Begin with the goal in mind: Leadership must set the vision for a system that has the most reliable possible confidentiality, availability and integrity of data. Without this leadership some may assume that designing things the old way will be acceptable. Golden Dome is too important to let this assumption stand, which means leadership must make designing for risk mitigation and cybersecurity a priority.

Design with Zero Trust Principles: Assuming trust is obsolete when Golden Dome systems are being designed. With a zero trust architecture, every user, device, and software system is continuously verified. This means enforcing granular identity, access controls, and dynamic authentication for all operations between space and ground. Zero trust designs isolate breaches, minimizes attacker movement, and enables rapid detection and response, making systems far more resilient against both external and insider threats.

Build in Upgradability: One thing is for sure; we will have to continually upgrade both the ground based and space-based components of Golden Dome. Upgrading space-based systems is especially hard, but when made a design goal it is achievable. Software can be securely updated, and clusters of systems can be reseeded as required when hardware must be upgraded.

Protect Threats to AI: Most of the AI solutions I’ve seen as part of Golden Dome concepts are advanced machine learning systems. But some planning and assessment solutions involve cutting edge LLM architectures and agentic AI. Whatever the solution, engineers must build in advanced protections of training data, models and output of AI to ensure objectives are to be met.

Understand Space Debris is also a Cybersecurity Issue: For decades now scientists, engineers and policymakers have contemplated the dangers of space debris. But the situation is only getting worse. Accidental damage that impacts the ability to communicate in the Golden Dome architecture can significantly degrade our ability to execute on the mission. Reliable, redundant communications must be built into the system at concept phase.

Prepare for Quantum Threats Today: As quantum computing advances, traditional encryption methods grow vulnerable. The defense sector is racing to integrate quantum-safe encryption, relying on post-quantum cryptography and smart designs that mitigate this threat. Getting quantum-safe protocols institutionalized early is vital, waiting until the threat materializes is not an option for national security.

The transformative promise of the Golden Dome hinges on proactive cyber resilience as much as on technological innovation. Quantum-safe encryption, zero trust networking, and AI protection are not mere “options,” they are operational requirements. Fortunately, the cybersecurity community has lessons that can be applied here.

Bob Gourley is the co-founder and CTO of OODA LLC, a global cybersecurity and technology consultancy.