GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks is a top voice in cybersecurity and government technology usage at large. He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University focusing on risk management, homeland security technologies and, of course, cybersecurity and has won a number of distinctions over the years. Brooks recently interviewed Kelley Kiernan, the chief technology officer of the Department of the Navy’s Small Business Innovation Research Program and the director of the Blue Cyber Initiative, in a piece for ExecutiveBiz. Read the full, enlightening conversation here.
In the discourse, Brooks learns about Blue Cyber’s “radical” offering to the general public: a cybersecurity-focused education and outreach program that includes daily office hours for small businesses to make risk management-related inquiries and monthly, six-hour information sessions. Kiernan also details the history of how the program came to be and gives a preview for what might be in its immediate future.
An excerpt from the chat:
“Brooks: What is the major challenge to U.S. small businesses creating robust cybersecurity?
Kiernan: Those companies who need to protect their intellectual property and/or DOD controlled unclassified information need professional information technology or cybersecurity service/staff to implement the NIST standard. But 70 percent of these companies have less than 30 employees, so they don’t have IT staff. This gap this means our micro-small businesses struggle to implement a sophisticated, comprehensive cybersecurity standard.”
Tune in to GovCon Wire’s Defending the Homeland: Science & Technology Forum today to hear Chuck Brooks moderate another fascinating discussion, this time about how technology is being employed to strengthen defenses against adversaries and the threats they pose.
Register here for this event, which will feature speakers such as the Department of Homeland Security’s Donald Coulter and Adam Cox and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Robert Rohrer, among others.
