The Cyber Kill Chain: Trademarked by Lockheed Martin?

I just learned that Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) filed a trademark for "Cyber Kill Chain" (here and here). That came as quite a surprise since, as far as I know, I was the first to coin and publish that phrase when I described the process that Russian hackers used to attack Georgian government websites (see pages 4 and 15 in the Project Grey Goose Phase I report October 2008).



I also included the Cyber Kill Chain in my presentation about our findings at the Palantir Gov Conference October 2008.

While Lockheed Martin has certainly monetized the phrase (a $4.6B contract), and while I enjoy the fact that the phrase is appealing as well as popular in the InfoSec industry, I hope that Lockheed Martin's trademarking of "Cyber Kill Chain" is just for show and that they don't actually attempt to enforce it.

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