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Celebrating 2017 Progress at the Inaugural NTSC National CISO Policy Conference

Celebrating 2017 Progress at the Inaugural NTSC National CISO Policy Conference

When the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) formed the National Technology Security Coalition (NTSC) in January 2016, we envisioned an organization that would serve as the preeminent advocacy voice for CISOs in Washington D.C. Often unheard on Capitol Hill, CISOs offer an important, practical point of view about cybersecurity as they are on the front lines of American businesses battling against millions of cyberattacks every day.

CISOs understand how federal and state regulations can help or frustrate their efforts. Through dialogue, education, and government relations, the NTSC seeks to unite both public and private sector stakeholders around policies that improve national cybersecurity standards and awareness.

Over the last year, we have made significant inroads toward fulfilling this mission. As part of celebrating our inaugural NTSC National CISO Policy Conference, we wanted to take a few moments to reflect on the progress of our CISO community this year.

  • Our Board of Directors, Advisory Board, and Policy Council now include 40 senior technology executives who are actively involved with the NTSC—with that number constantly growing.
  • We’ve introduced a Regional CISO Policy Roundtable program that has featured discussions and networking during events in Atlanta, Dallas, and San Francisco—with future roundtables planned for Boston and New York City.
  • In May, a group of NTSC Board Members participated in our inaugural DC Fly-In. Across two days, our delegation met with over 20 Congressional representatives and staffers to address topics including national data breach notification legislation, cyber threat intelligence sharing, encryption, email privacy, GDPR, active cyber defense, and cybersecurity education and workforce development.
  • Throughout the year, we’ve actively worked with Congressional representatives in the House and Senate about key cybersecurity legislation with the help of lobbyists, NTSC staff, and our CISO delegations. For example, we’ve continually engaged in dialogue with Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) about his Active Cyber Defense bill and our membership reviewed his draft legislation.
  • We’ve shared our policy viewpoints about issues such as national data breach notification in publications such as The Hill.
  • We hosted a CISO panel at this year’s Atlanta Cyber Security Summit in April and partnered with the summit to facilitate meetings between our CISO community and key government stakeholders.
  • We’re actively involved with the Army’s Advanced Cyber Warfare Class at Cyber Command in Fort Gordon, Georgia and continue to develop a deeper relationship between Cyber Command and the NTSC.
  • We’ve partnered with the Automation Federation and now hold a seat on their Board of Directors.
  • IBM Security and Juniper Networks joined Ionic Security as our three leading underwriters.

Building upon this work, we’re excited to raise the national profile of CISOs through our NTSC National CISO Policy Conference on October 5, 2017. At this conference, we will continue our dialogue, education, and advocacy about important topics related to national cybersecurity standards and awareness. We will welcome more than 60 senior technology security executives to help us address these issues that are so important to the NTSC’s legislative agenda.

This conference is a big step toward carrying out our mission, but it’s just one of many steps as we progress as an organization. We look forward to the keynote talks, panel discussions, dialogue, and networking on October 5—and we will build upon the enthusiasm generated at this conference to propel us into 2018.