DoD working on cyber ‘warfighter scorecards’ for COCOMs’ weapons systems

McKeown speaks at a briefing on the release of the DoD Zero Trust Strategy and Roadmap at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Nov. 22, 2022. (DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jack Sanders)

By Carley Welch • May 19, 2025

The Department of Defense is working on creating cybersecurity assessment tools, or “scorecards,” to determine the cyber posture of weapons systems within the combatant commands, a defense official said.

David McKeown, who is performing the duties of the DoD’s deputy chief information officer for cyber and chief information security officer, said the “warfighter scorecards” will help servicemembers better understand where their weapons systems fall vulnerable — something they are not fully adept at yet, he said. Right now such assessments exist, but are not as comprehensive as a scorecard would be.

“They [the COCOMs] need to know the risks that they’re incurring across all of those systems. We do an analysis of a weapons system, and we publish it, but I don’t think the combatant commands really understand the impacts of their mission. So we’re going to try to drive in more mission impact analysis,” McKeown said Thursday during the Potomac Officer’s Club Cyber Summit.