Our Cyber Defense Is Too Weak: IronNet Founder

Retired 4-Star General Keith Alexander - the longest serving head of the the U.S. government's National Security Agency (NSA) and founder of US Cyber Command - two of the federal government's main cybersecurity agencies - has formed a start-up enterprise with plans to capitalize on his years in public service....................................

Startup IronNet is going public via a $1.2 billion SPAC deal, and its founder says it's to accelerate the development of its cybersecurity tools to protect America

Jeff ElderMar 18, 2021, 12:30 PM

Business Insider | 2021-03-18                    

Former head of the NSA and Cyber Command Keith Alexander says the US must reorganize cybersecurity. 

Alexander is CEO of cybersecurity startup IronNet, which announced it is going public via SPAC.

Alexander believes the US needs one official to oversee all of cybersecurity for the nation. 

"If the SolarWinds cyberattacks had sought to destroy US networks rather than just spy on them, "the financial impact on this country would have been huge, . ."

 Such attacks are coming, and America is unprepared, says Alexander, who may be uniquely qualified to assess the government and industry sides of American cybersecurity. . .

This week IronNet announced it is going public with special purpose acquisition company LGL Systems Acquisition Corp. at a valuation of approximately $1.2 billion. IronNet, a Washington, DC, area company of 250 people, previously raised nearly $282 million in venture capital from investors including Bridgewater Associates, ForgePoint Capital, and Kleiner Perkins.

The deal makes it the latest startup opting to go public via SPAC — a company created to merge or acquire another business and take it public quickly and on a budget — rather than a traditional IPO.

Alexander said the urgent need for cybersecurity innovation was the reason to go public via this route. Alexander is now shopping the IronNet tools to some of the same military personnel who once worked for him – reluctantly, he says. "I didn't want to, initially," he told Insider, sensitive to selling something to his former staff

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"Everyone worked for me. After six years some of them came to me and said, 'hey, what you're doing is what our nation needs. Get over it.'"

Alexander says he believes there should be better collaboration between government and industry, but that federal organization is a priority. "There is no collective defense in the government," he says.

 "Think about that. We should fix that."

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