The world has become addicted to the Internet and all its vast expanse has to offer. Experts have forecast that in 2014 there will be upwards of 2.5 billion devices connected to the Internet.

Whether you access it via a desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, game console or other device the socializing, services and content has addicted all of us. This addiction is why criminals, activists, terrorists and rogue nation states have turned the Internet into a weapon.

Over the past few years cyber crime and other acts of cyber aggression have experienced double digit growth and this rapid threat expansion is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

This trend has resulted in some 90% of U.S. companies admitting that they had detected computer security breaches. Add to that in 2010 the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) acknowledging that their 15,000+ networks and 7+ million computing devices are probed over 6 million times per day and suffer thousands of cyber attacks a year.

You may recall back in the fall of 2008 unknown foreign entities were able to successfully compromise and access the classified networks of the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command.

To counter this rapidly growing threat, the global intelligence community and some private sector organizations have begun to focus on cyber intelligence. Cyber intelligence is the identification, collection, tracking, analysis of relevant information in an effort to mitigate digital security threats that target our systems, devices and information assets.

This blog is the first in an ongoing series of weekly installments that will cover critical aspects of global cyber intelligence and provide insight and foresight into this rapidly changing area.

Kevin G. Coleman is a long-time security technology executive and former Chief Strategist at Netscape. He is Senior Fellow with the Technolytics Institute, where he provides consulting services on strategic technology and security issues.