California cybersecurity awards announced

On Wednesday at the 13th Annual Cyber Security Symposium in Sacramento, individuals in five government IT programs were acknowledged for their outstanding work in the area of cybersecurity.    Nominees were submitted by state departments and local government agencies throughout California.    Winners included:

Category: Security Leadership in State Government

Ken Foster, Department of Military ISO

Foster has worked for the Department of Military (CMD) for 28 years, the last 3 of which he has been the Computer Network Defense Analyst and subject matter expert. He received the award due to his work in implementing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) protection measures and for starting the Computer Network Defense team to help regulate the state’s cyber security compliance.

Category: Security Leadership in Local Government

Gary Coverdale, Napa County ISO

Coverdale helped Napa County build a security program with a limited budget by securing the County’s mobile environment, building a redundant and disaster-resilient data center and working with the County’s Privacy Officer to develop the Privacy and Security in Napa County (PSINC) Committee, which helps promote security and privacy awareness. Coverdale is also a member of many government and private sector security advisory boards, including CISO Summit, SecureWorld, FutureGov and State of California.

Category: Security Leadership in Education

Dr. Dan Manson, Professor/Chair of Computer Information Systems at Cal Poly, Pomona

Manson is a Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Information Assurance at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona). He led an effort for Cal Poly Pomona to be designated a National Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education in 2005 and 2008. Manson has obtained multiple grants from the National Science Foundation to study development of cybersecurity and to start an organization to guide cybersecurity competitions, called the National Cybersecurity Sports Federation. Cal Poly Pomona created the Western Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition under Manson’s leadership.

Category: Security Leadership in Operations

Scott Mac Donald, Ken Kojima, Prince Donaldson, Jan Hager, Cindy Gomez, Ken Deem, Mark Coudriet, DeWayne Stephenson, Louis Godey

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Information Security Office

The CDCR Information Security Office implemented the CDCR Encryption project to use a three-phased approach to improve security: encrypted laptops, encrypted USB devices and encrypted file shares. The project, which also centralized encryption support to 10 part-time experts has resulted in an 80 percent reduction in malware incidents from USB drives and saved about $500,000 over the past two years.

Category: Privacy Leadership

Dr. Lisa Scott-Lee, Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Resources

Scott-Lee is Sacramento County’s Deputy Compliance Officer and co-chair of the statewide County Issue’s Work Group. She has helped the county develop several aspects of their privacy and security policy, including Privacy Incident Reporting guidance with the Department of Health Care Services, HIPAA Omnibus Rule planning and preparedness, represented local government in a national workgroup to help develop a Health Information Exchanges platform and helped to maintain a statewide Privacy, Security and Compliance website for local governments.