INTRODUCTION The Internet has transformed our world. In a single generation, it has revolutionized the way we innovate, communicate, and share information on a global scale, catalyzing unprecedented advancements in human prosperity, equality, and connectivity. Upon this Internet backbone we have built a flourishing digital ecosystem, combining systems and technologies with our economies, our societies, and ourselves. In doing so, the digital ecosystem has come to reflect the values of its architects and its users. Technologies have promoted democracy, free speech, innovation, and equality. But they also have been misused to enable transnational repression and digital authoritarianism; steal data and intellectual property; distribute disinformation; disrupt critical infrastructure; proliferate online harassment, exploitation, and abuse; enable criminals and foster violent extremism; and threaten peace and stability. People and technology are increasingly linked, further enabling the very best, as well as the worst, of humanity. In this decisive decade, we have grand ambitions for the further values-driven development of our digital ecosystem. We are building a smart grid, powered by distributed renewable electricity and balanced with intelligent systems, that promises a bright and resilient future of energy abundance. We envision a maturing “Internet of Things” (IoT), comprising everything from consumer goods to digitized industrial controls to constellations of satellites, that will increase efficiency and safety while providing game-changing insights into our environment and economy. We are laying the foundations for real-time global collaboration leveraging vast amounts of data and computing power that will unlock scientific discoveries and other public goods of which we cannot yet conceive. Achieving this vision of a prosperous, connected future will depend upon the cybersecurity and resilience of its underlying technologies and systems. We have learned hard lessons and made significant progress in the collaborative defense of our digital ecosystem. Every day, cyber defenders foil state-backed attacks and prevent criminal plots around the world. But the underlying structural dynamics of the digital ecosystem frustrate their efforts. Its components remain prone to disruption, vulnerable to exploitation, and are often co-opted by malicious actors. We must make fundamental changes to the underlying dynamics of the digital ecosystem, shifting the advantage to its defenders and perpetually frustrating the forces that would threaten it. Our goal is a defensible, resilient digital ecosystem where it is costlier to attack systems than defend them, where sensitive or private information is secure and protected, and where neither incidents nor errors cascade into catastrophic, systemic consequences. In creating these conditions, we can and must seize the opportunity to instill our most cherished values, as embodied by the Declaration for the Future of the Internet (DFI) and by the Freedom Online Coalition. This strategy will position the United States and its allies and partners to build that digital ecosystem together, making it more easily and inherently defensible, resilient, and aligned with our values. By the end of this decisive decade, we will achieve these outcomes so we can confidently take bold leaps into a digitally-enabled future that benefits us all. 1 NATIONAL CYBERSECURITY STRATEGY