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Hello and welcome to Spycast from the Secret Files of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

I'm Peter Ernest, the Executive Director of the Museum. I served for some 36 years

in the Central Intelligence Agency, largely as what is called an operations officer or a case officer.

Every month will be bringing you interesting. an operations officer or a case officer.

Every month will be bringing you interesting talks with visitors,

with authors, with others who have something to do with the world of intelligence

and espionage. Intelligence and Espionage.

My guest today is Melissa Hathaway. Melissa Hathaway most recently was the acting senior director for

cyberspace on the National Security Council, the

NSC, where she led the 60-day cyberspace policy review for President Obama, producing a comprehensive report containing 25 near and midterm recommendations.

And prior to that, she had a very distinguished career in this field.

She has written numerous publications, lectured, led task forces,

and now she has her own firm, which is Hathaway Global Strategies.

Melissa, we're delighted to have you here today.

I know you have a very busy schedule and I know you've just most recently changed from the National Security Council to starting your own firm.

So welcome.

And I'm going to start out with something very, very basic.

Many of us, including me, have a very hard time getting our arms around this whole business.

We hear about cyber security, cyber war, the cyber threat.

And could you just give us a sense,

a sense of what this cyberspace,

...