DISA Selects AttackIQ as the Department of War's Enterprise Platform for Adversarial Exposure Validation

Department-wide deployment across all Military Services, Combatant Commands, and Defense Agencies to establish a common platform for continuously validating cyber defenses while enabling AI-powered cyber missions through AVA Agentic OS.

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AttackIQ, the leader in threat-informed Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), today announced that after a lengthy analysis of alternatives, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has selected AttackIQ as the enterprise platform for Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) across the Department of War (DoW). The deployment establishes a common operational capability that enables all DoW components to continuously validate the effectiveness of its cyber defenses against real-world adversary behavior while providing Department leadership with enterprise-wide visibility into cyber readiness.

The deployment will be implemented by DISA and will be supported across the DoDIN, creating the Department's first enterprise-wide capability for continuously measuring defensive effectiveness through evidence-based adversary emulation. Rather than relying solely on vulnerability data or periodic assessments, AttackIQ enables organizations to continuously prove whether security controls, detections, and defensive processes will perform against the adversary techniques most likely to target their mission.

As part of the deployment, the Department will also leverage AttackIQ AVA Agentic OS, the industry's first agentic operating system purpose-built for cybersecurity missions, together with Watchtower, AttackIQ's Hyper-Localized AI Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyzer. These AI-powered capabilities support the Department's broader strategy to modernize cyber operations by accelerating the operational use of artificial intelligence to automate cyber analysis, prioritize mission-relevant threats, and continuously optimize defensive operations.

The enterprise AEV platform will support mission-critical use cases including:

• Continuous validation of cyber defensive operations
• Threat intelligence-driven adversary emulation
• Detection coverage analysis and optimization
• Security control validation and defense optimization
• Zero-trust architecture validation
• Purple team automation
• Enterprise cyber readiness measurement
• Threat debt identification and reduction
• AI security validation
• Cyber mission assurance across joint, coalition, and distributed environments
• Executive cyber readiness reporting and enterprise risk visibility

Beyond establishing the Department's enterprise platform for Adversarial Exposure Validation, the deployment includes AVA Agentic OS and Watchtower to automate complex cyber missions through teams of specialized AI agents. Together, these capabilities continuously analyze mission-specific threat intelligence, identify the adversary techniques most relevant to each Defense Agency, orchestrate autonomous validation missions, optimize defensive controls, and provide Department leadership with a real-time understanding of the effectiveness and readiness of cyber defensive operations across the global enterprise.

"The future of cyber defense is not measured by how many vulnerabilities are discovered—it is measured by how effectively organizations can validate and optimize their ability to defeat real adversaries," said Carl Wright, Chief Commercial Officer of AttackIQ. "By standardizing on AttackIQ as its enterprise Adversarial Exposure Validation platform, the Department of War is establishing a common operational framework for continuously measuring cyber readiness while leveraging AI to automate analysis, prioritize operational risk, and optimize defensive operations at enterprise scale."

"This is a game-changer. When Cyber Defenses are in the need for speed as adversarial tactics and AI are now much harder to defeat, establishing a shared Adversarial Exposure Validation capability across the Department of War Information Network greatly strengthens the Department’s ability to continuously assess the effectiveness of cyber defenses against the ever-evolving adversary tactics. Combining evidence-based validation with AI-enabled analysis and automation will help provide greater visibility into cyber readiness, improve defensive decision-making, and accelerate our ability to adapt to an increasingly dynamic threat environment."

— Paul Craft, Brigadier General, US Army (Retired), former Deputy Commanding General of ARCYBER and founder of DISA’s Global Operations Command

"DISA is delivering a foundational capability for continuously assessing the effectiveness of cyber defenses against rapidly evolving adversary tactics. As artificial intelligence dramatically increases both the speed and sophistication of offensive cyber operations by our nation's adversaries, capabilities like AttackIQ will become essential to ensuring our cyber warfighters can continuously validate, optimize, and maintain the readiness of the defenses they depend on."

— Dave Mihelcic, Former Chief Technology Officer, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)

The deployment further reinforces AttackIQ's long-standing leadership in threat-informed cybersecurity and its commitment to helping the world's most demanding organizations continuously validate, measure, and improve cyber resilience through evidence-based security operations.

Building an Enterprise Workforce for Adversarial Exposure Validation

Recognizing that technology alone does not create cyber readiness, the Department of War is also adopting AttackIQ Academy as the enterprise training and enablement platform for AEV. The Department will deploy a customized AttackIQ Academy learning path designed specifically for Department of War cyber operators, enabling personnel across DoW to rapidly develop the knowledge and operational skills required to execute continuous Adversarial Exposure Validation.

What sets this learning path apart is how operators build skills: not by watching content, but by making decisions. The path puts cyber operators inside interactive, AI-driven decision simulations that present realistic validation scenarios, respond to the choices operators make, and deliver immediate, individualized feedback on their reasoning. Operators practice the judgement the mission actually demands: scoping an assessment against a real adversary technique, interpreting prevention, detection, and logging results, and briefing findings to both technical and leadership audiences.

That practice is reinforced with hands-on labs on live AttackIQ platforms and cyber ranges, where operators run real emulations and validate security controls against the systems they defend. Self-paced computer-based training (CBT) spans four courses that build on one another:

• Foundations of Operationalizing MITRE ATT&CK®: grounds operators in the adversary behavior framework and Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) analysis
• Foundations of Purple Teaming: teaches how to plan and run coupled Red and Blue team exercises
• Agentless Threat Emulation with AttackIQ Flex: puts operators on the platform to run emulations without agent deployment
• Validating Security Controls with AttackIQ Enterprise: brings it all together into AEV at enterprise scale

“Technology alone doesn't create cyber readiness—people do. AttackIQ Academy ensures operators across the DoW develop a common understanding of adversary behavior, validation methodology, and operational decision-making, transforming a Department-wide software deployment into a Department-wide operational capability."

— Kathy Hsu, Head of Federal Operations, AttackIQ

To support enterprise workforce readiness, U.S. Cyber Command will have centralized visibility into Academy participation, course completion, assessment scores, certification progress, and operator proficiency across the Department. This capability enables leadership to measure workforce readiness, identify training gaps, track organizational adoption, and ensure cyber operators possess the knowledge and practical skills required to effectively employ the Department's enterprise Adversarial Exposure Validation platform.

Together, the AttackIQ Adversarial Exposure Validation platform and Academy establish a unified operational baseline for both technology and operator proficiency, ensuring that cyber readiness is measured not only by the capabilities deployed, but also by the people trained to employ them effectively.

About AttackIQ

AttackIQ is the leader in threat-informed Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), helping organizations continuously validate defenses, break attack paths, and reduce threat debt through evidence-based security operations.

Through AVA Agentic OS, AttackIQ has introduced the industry's first agentic operating system purpose-built for CTEM, enabling organizations to execute Continuous Threat Exposure Management autonomously at enterprise scale. By orchestrating specialized AI agents across threat intelligence, adversary exposure validation, security validation, detection engineering, control optimization, threat debt reduction, and AI security validation, AttackIQ transforms fragmented security activities into continuous cyber resilience.

Trusted by the world's largest enterprises, government agencies, and managed security providers, AttackIQ empowers organizations to continuously discover, validate, and reduce cyber risk with confidence.

CTEM Runs on AVA.