Define 'mission assurance' in cyberspace and identify one key practice to improve it.

• A. Mission assurance is ensuring critical mission capabilities remain available under cyber threat; practice: implement redundant networks and automatic failover.
• B. Mission assurance is maximizing data throughput; practice: buy faster routers.
• C. Mission assurance is eliminating all remote access; practice: disconnect from the internet.
• D. Mission assurance is achieving zero latency; practice: remove caches.

Answer: (A)

Mission assurance in cyberspace is about keeping critical mission capabilities available and resilient even when cyber threats or disruptions occur. The statement that best describes this emphasizes ensuring those essential capabilities stay up under cyber threat, and the recommended practice—implementing redundant networks with automatic failover—directly supports that goal. Redundancy creates alternate communication paths and components so a single failure or compromise doesn’t interrupt operations, and automatic failover switches to those alternatives quickly, preserving continuity with minimal downtime.

Other options miss the core aim: maximizing data throughput focuses on speed rather than availability; removing remote access or disconnecting from the internet undermines mission capability; aiming for zero latency is unrealistic and removing caches can degrade performance.