Both civilian and military actors are needed to prevent and respond to cyber exploitation and cyber attacks. Unlike other gray areas, any effort to respond involves cooperation of the private sector, since 85–90% of the critical infrastructure, by any definition, is privately owned and operated. Critical infrastructure is known to be vulnerable, including the electric grid, utilities – especially those fueled by nuclear energy – transportation, and all forms of communication. Public reports indicate that most cyber intrusions and putative attacks have been against privately held critical infrastructure, both in America and Europe.

Three distinct types of novel problems emerge from the demands that will be placed on civil-military relationship in the event of a cyber attack. The first is the fact of private ownership of most critical infrastructure. The need to secure cooperation between government and the private sector presents serious obstacles. In the United States, efforts to legislate standards for the private sector, discussed in Chapter 12, have been thwarted. However the issues are not simply industrial reluctance to cooperate with all of government: fear of antitrust prosecution also plays a role. Moreover, resistance to NSA overreach in monitoring telecommunications and the internet have helped create deep concerns about government regulation within the private sector and civil liberties groups alike. The same issue arises in Europe, where cooperation across state lines is even more important given the interdependence of much of its critical infrastructure. Lack of resilience in one nation's infrastructure immediately affects its neighbors: a failure of the electric grid in Germany triggered power outages in France, Italy, and parts of Spain.

The second problem is the joinder of the intelligence and military domains, and the potential intertwining of operations. U.S. Cyber Command is co-located with the NSA, and headed by the same person. This has led to questions about oversight and control of both intelligence activities and military responses. In cyber war, as in targeted killing, intelligence services may be performing essentially military operations. The President's Independent Review Group recommended separating the agencies and their leaderships, with the NSA clearly designated as a foreign intelligence agency, but as of this writing, leadership is still shared. U.S. Cyber Command reports through Strategic Command to the Secretary of Defense. NSA, a critical (and much criticized) part of America's intelligence network, reports both to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of National Intelligence.