2021 has been a year of truly unprecedented security dilemmas: from ransomware attacks to the increasingly complex information environment, to new issues like cognitive security. Through it all, IST has been there, working with you to help flip the script. 

Together, we’ve designed, developed, and implemented solutions to these unique security threats, and we’re only yet getting started. A few highlights from this tumultuous year:

• This spring, we launched our seminal Ransomware Task Force Report, informing and shaping responses to a growing threat at just the right time. Our convening approach—and responsivity to the rapidly changing news—even had some calling us the Avengers of cybersecurity!
  
• In May, our inaugural StratTech conference brought together CEOs, senior officials, and policy practitioners on the biggest intersections of tech and security. Conversations there helped create space and spark new work in areas like digital systems and defense acquisitions.
  
• Throughout 2021, IST invested in designing solutions for some of the toughest problem sets facing humanity. We found new partners for taking on traditional dilemmas like nuclear command and control, and set out to take the lead on the emerging field of digital systems and cognition.
  
• And we’ve grown, too–investing in ourselves and in the networks that will enable and amplify our work to come. We brought on Megan Stifel as Chief Strategy Officer, Andy Facini as Communications Director, and added many talented new analysts and interns to keep us at the forefront of what’s to come.

It’s our aim at IST to continue to lean into our unique approach, and create even more breakthroughs and policy successes in the year to come. We thank you all for working with us, learning with us, and for enabling this work. We could not do this without your support—to include financially!—and without your working alongside us to solve these important issues. 

As we work toward ensuring a more secure 2022 and beyond, stay tuned, stay safe, and happy holidays from all of us at IST.