Thursday, October 29, 2026 | 10:00 AM ET

Golden Dome will depend on far more than sensors, interceptors, and satellites. Every radar, command-and-control system, aircraft, power system, and communications network behind the mission runs on software. If that software can be exploited, the defense itself is at risk.

That is the argument behind the Digital Golden Dome, a concept coined by former Gartner analysts Brad LaPorte and Rob Smith of Lionfish Tech Advisors. Their research was inspired by the reality that much of the software running U.S. defense and critical infrastructure was built decades ago, often in C and C++, and cannot be quickly patched, replaced, or recertified.

Rewriting U.S. legacy software alone could cost an estimated $6.9 trillion to $34.5 trillion.

At the same time, AI is making it faster and cheaper to find exploitable flaws. Attackers gain speed, while defenders still have to determine which systems are affected, engineer a fix, test it, recertify where necessary, and safely deploy it.

So what protects the software in the meantime?

Join Brad LaPorte and Rob Smith of Lionfish Tech Advisors and Joseph M. Saunders, Founder and CEO of RunSafe Security, for a conversation about the software layer of national defense and what it takes to secure systems that cannot simply be patched or rewritten.

Brad and Rob will explain the thinking behind the Digital Golden Dome and why they believe Operational Software Assurance fills a gap in today’s security stack. Joe will bring that framework into the embedded and safety-critical systems that power defense, energy, transportation, communications, and industrial infrastructure.

In This Session, You’ll Learn

• Why Golden Dome depends on the security and resilience of the software operating it
• How AI is changing the economics of vulnerability discovery and exploitation
• Why patching and rewriting cannot be the only answer for long-life embedded systems
• Where tools such as EDR, SBOMs, software composition analysis, Zero Trust, and patch management reach their limits
• What Brad and Rob mean by a Digital Golden Dome
• How Operational Software Assurance connects all three aspects of defending critical software
• Where Embedded Runtime Security fits when vulnerable software must remain operational
• Why the software running U.S. critical infrastructure increasingly has to be considered part of the national defense mission
• How organizations can reduce exploitability while a vulnerability remains in deployed software

Register now to secure your spot!

Meet the Speakers