Cyber Defence
Proactive cyber defense or active cyber defense (ACD) means acting in anticipation to oppose an attack involving computers and networks. Proactive cyber defense will most often require additional cybersecurity from internet service providers.
Some of the reasons for a proactive defense strategy are about cost and choice. Making choices after an attack are difficult and costly. Proactive defense is key to mitigating operational risk.
History
In the fifth century, B.C., Sun Tzu advocated foreknowledge (predictive analysis) as part of a winning strategy. He warned that planners must have a precise understanding of the active threat and not "remain ignorant of the enemy's condition". The thread of proactive defense is spun throughout his teachings.
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl was likely the first to use of the term proactive in his 1946 book Man's Search for Meaning to distinguish the act of taking responsibility for one's own circumstances rather than attributing one's condition to external factors.
Later in 1982, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) used "proactive" as a contrary concept to "reactive" in assessing risk. In the framework of risk management "proactive" meant taking initiative by acting rather than reacting to threat events. Conversely "reactive" measures respond to a stimulus or past events rather than predicting the event. Military science then and now considers defense as the science-art of thwarting an attack. Furthermore, doctrine poses that if a party attacks an enemy who is about to attack this could be called active-defense. Defense is also a euphemism for war but does not carry the negative connotation of an offensive war. Usage in this way has broadened the term to include most military issues including offensive, which is implicitly referred to as active-defense. Politically, the concept of national self-defense to counter a war of aggression refers to a defensive war involving pre-emptive offensive strikes and is one possible criterion in the 'Just War Theory'. Proactive defense has moved beyond theory. It has been put into practice in theatres of operation.
In 1989 Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, published by Free Press, transformed the meaning "to act before a situation becomes a source of confrontation or crisis". Since then, "proactive" has been placed in opposition to the words "reactive" or "passive".