From the Fall 2025 Issue

Rhizomatic Threats in Practice: Applied Cybersecurity Modeling for Emergent Threat Landscapes

Author(s):

Henry J. Sienkiewicz, Adjunct Faculty | Georgetown and George Washington Universities, Former CIO, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)

Introduction The rise of decentralized digital infrastructures and flexible adversary ecosystems has destabilized traditional cybersecurity assumptions. Threat actors today often operate not within rigid hierarchies but through fluid, self-organizing networks resembling rhizomes—a