Over the past year, the United States has shown the entire world that we have the most powerful, sophisticated, and technologically advanced military on earth—and it is not even close. This includes not only our overwhelming conventional military strength, but also our unparalleled non-kinetic powers.
The National Cyber Strategy outlines my priorities for ensuring that America remains unrivaled in cyberspace. It calls for unprecedented coordination across government and the private sector to invest in the best technologies and continue world-class innovation, and to make the most of America’s cyber capabilities for both offensive and defensive missions.
Our cyber tools and operators are the best in the world—and we are empowering them to defend America by disrupting and disorienting our adversaries, and denying them a safe haven. The United States has capabilities that the rest of the world can only begin to imagine. Our warriors in cyberspace are working everyday to ensure that anyone who would seek to harm America will pay the steepest and most terrible price.
This strategy is about defending the safety, security, and prosperity of the American People. As the 250th anniversary of American Independence approaches, the strategy laid out in this document aims to help ensure that America remains the strongest, freest, and greatest country in the history of the world, long into the future. American Power will stand up in cyberspace.
Cyberspace was born in America. American talent, innovation, research, and powerful government
capabilities combined to create a dynamic, thriving, digital world that every American relies on
for information, economic opportunity, and our basic way of life. Indeed, the cyber domain is key
to President Trump’s actions to ensure America leads the world in finance, innovation and
emerging technology, military power, and manufacturing.
Freedom and safety in cyberspace, however, cannot be taken for granted. Adversaries and
cybercriminals exploit cyberspace to advance authoritarianism, suppress democracy, and
undermine our national and economic security.
Unlike other Administrations, the Trump Administration will not tinker at the edges and apply
partial measures and ambiguous strategies that neglect the growing number and severity of cyber
threats. President Trump will continue to address threats in cyberspace directly.
America enjoys unrivalled technological and economic innovation, unmatched military power, and
a society devoted to free and open expression. Every American should take practical steps to
protect themselves and their families in cyberspace, but America’s citizens do not stand alone.
President Trump has demonstrated time and again that he is determined to make Americans secure
and prosperous by harnessing all of our comparative advantages. This strategy is a continuation of
President Trump’s actions, and directly supports the National Security Strategy by putting America
first in cyberspace.
Our adversaries and cyber criminals target our families, neighbors, small businesses, farmers, first
responders, patients, and senior citizens in cyberspace. They disrupt critical services like
healthcare, banking, food supply, and water treatment. They impose tremendous costs on our
economy and make everyday goods less affordable.
President Trump’s actions, however, send a clear message: we will act to defend our interests in
cyberspace. Whether destroying online scammers’ networks and seizing $15 billion of their stolen
money, supporting a globe-spanning operation to obliterate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, or leaving
our adversaries blind and uncomprehending during a flawless military operation to bring
international narco-terrorist Nicolas Maduro to justice, adversaries are on notice that America’s
cyber operators and tools are the best in the world and can be swiftly and effectively deployed to
defend America’s interests.
Americans re-elected President Trump to put America first. This strategy communicates the Trump
Administration’s cyber vision and approach to the American people, to Congress, to our partners
in industry and allies across the globe—and also to adversaries. It explains the Administration’s
priorities, summarized in six policy pillars, which will guide action and resourcing through the
follow-on policy vehicles. This strategy builds on President Trump’s actions to date, and requires
a level of coordination, commitment, and political will never before marshalled against cyber
threats. President Trump’s leadership has created a new era in cyberspace.
Moving Forward
Our resolve is absolute. We will act swiftly, deliberately, and proactively to disable cyber threats
to America. We will not confine our responses to the “cyber” realm. We will undertake an
unprecedented effort, operating in a coordinated and sustained fashion across the U.S. government.
Working with allies across the globe, we will promote U.S. interests and security. We will fight
the curtailment of free speech. We will outcompete adversaries who sell “low cost” AI and digital
technologies that carry embedded censorship, surveillance, and ideological bias. We will partner
closely with industry and academia, at the speed and scale commensurate with the threats we face,
and in accordance with our values.
President Trump has made targeting Americans a hazardous business. Our adversaries have and
will increasingly feel the consequences of their actions; we will dismantle networks, pursue
hackers and spies, and sanction lawless foreign hacking companies. We will unveil and embarrass
online espionage, destructive propaganda and influence operations, and cultural subversion.
By disrupting adversaries’ cyber campaigns, and making our networks more defensible and
resilient, we will unleash innovation, accelerate economic growth, and secure American
technology dominance. We will remove burdensome, ineffective regulations so that our industry
partners innovate quickly in emerging technologies. Partners in the private sector must be able to
respond and recover quickly to ensure continuity of the American economy. We will defend our
federal systems, critical infrastructure, and supply chains by putting security at the foundation of
innovation. We will modernize our information systems so that old infrastructure does not choke
innovation. We will engage internationally through diplomacy, commerce, and operations to
ensure norms and standards reflect our values. We will leverage the immense talents and ingenuity
of our private sector research base. We will establish a new level of relationship between the public
and private sectors to defend America in peace and war.
Pillars of Action
Six Policy Pillars underpin this strategy and will guide implementation and measures for success.
1. Shape Adversary Behavior
American citizens, companies, and our allies should not have to fend off sophisticated military,
intelligence, and criminal adversaries in cyberspace alone. We will deploy the full suite of U.S.
government defensive and offensive cyber operations. We will unleash the private sector by
creating incentives to identify and disrupt adversary networks and scale our national capabilities.
We must detect, confront, and defeat cyber adversaries before they breach our networks and
systems. We will erode their capacity and capabilities, and use all instruments of national power
to raise the costs for their aggression. We will counter the spread of the surveillance state and
authoritarian technologies that monitor and repress citizens. Cybercrime and intellectual property
theft are some of the greatest threats to global economies. We will uproot criminal infrastructure
and deny financial exit and safe haven. Defending cyberspace and safeguarding freedom is a
collective effort—the distribution of cost and responsibility must be fair across the U.S. and allies
who share our democratic values. We will work together to create real risk for adversaries who
seek to harm us, and impose consequences on those who do act against us.
2. Promote Common Sense Regulation
Cyber defense should not be reduced to a costly checklist that delays preparedness, action, and
response. We will streamline cyber regulations to reduce compliance burdens, address liability,
and better align regulators and industry globally. We will streamline data and cybersecurity
regulations to ensure that the private sector has the agility necessary to keep pace with rapidly
evolving threats. We will emphasize the right to privacy for Americans and American data.
3. Modernize and Secure Federal Government Networks
We will accelerate the modernization, defensibility, and resilience of federal information systems
by implementing cybersecurity best practices, post-quantum cryptography, zero-trust architecture,
and cloud transition. We will work to elevate the importance of cyber in government leadership
and in the board room. We will use the best technologies and teams to constantly test and hunt for
malicious actors on federal networks. We will prioritize the security and resilience of the National
Security Systems that underpin our military, intelligence, and civilian enterprises. We will work
to adopt AI-powered cybersecurity solutions to defend federal networks and deter intrusions at
scale. Working across the government to modernize and create competitive procurement
processes, we will remove barriers to entry so that the government can buy and use the best
technology.
4. Secure Critical Infrastructure
We will identify, prioritize, and harden America’s critical infrastructure and secure its supply
chains, including defense critical infrastructure and adjacent vendors, private companies,
networks, and services—such as the energy grid, financial and telecommunication systems, data
centers, water utilities, and hospitals—securing information and operational technology supply
chains. We must move away from adversary vendors and products, promoting and employing U.S.
technologies. We will deny our adversaries initial access, and in the event of an incident, we must
be able to recover quickly. We will galvanize the role of state, local, Tribal, and territorial
authorities as a complement to—not a substitute for—our national cybersecurity efforts.
5. Sustain Superiority in Critical and Emerging Technologies
Securing American innovation and protecting our national intellectual advantage will be
paramount. We will build secure technologies and supply chains that protect user privacy from
design to deployment, including supporting the security of cryptocurrencies and blockchain
technologies. We will promote the adoption of post-quantum cryptography and secure quantum
computing.
And we will secure the AI technology stack—including our data centers—and promote innovation
in AI security. We will swiftly implement AI-enabled cyber tools to detect, divert, and deceive
threat actors. We will rapidly adopt and promote agentic AI in ways that securely scale network
defense and disruption. Through cyber diplomacy, we will ensure that AI—particularly generative
AI and agentic AI—advances innovation and global stability. We will secure the data,
infrastructure, and models that underpin U.S. leadership in AI and we will call out and frustrate
the spread of foreign AI platforms that censor, surveil, and mislead their users.
6. Build Talent and Capacity
President Trump has called America’s cyber workforce a strategic asset that “protects the
American people, the homeland, and the American way of life.” It is an asset worthy of great
investment and essential to our nation’s economic prosperity and security. We need a pipeline that
develops and shares talent. It must be pragmatic and accessible—reconciling and taking advantage
of existing avenues within academia, vocational and technical schools, corporations, and venture
capital opportunities—to educate and train our existing cyber workforce across industries and
occupations, and to recruit the next generation to design and deploy exquisite cyber technologies
and solutions. We will eliminate roadblocks that prevent industry, academia, government, and the
military from aligning incentives and building a highly skilled cyber workforce. We will harness
the existing resources, authorities, talents, and ingenuity that make America great.
Conclusion:
This strategy makes clear the course President Trump has pursued in cyberspace, and the direction
the U.S. government will pursue with increasing impact. President Trump has acted to ensure that
Americans—especially future generations—will have a strong country where they are secure and
defended, and a future defined by individual freedom, economic prosperity, and opportunity.
President Trump will continue showing those who harm our interests and attack our values in
cyberspace place themselves at risk.
