Cyber Security Advisor, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mike Lettman is the Cyber Security Advisor for Region 9 with the Department of Homeland Security. The mission of cyber security advisors is to provide direct coordination, outreach, and regional support in order to protect cyber components essential to the sustainability, preparedness, and protection of the Nation’s Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR) and State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial (SLTT) governments. This is primarily accomplished with tools and assessments to test an organizations resilience and cyber maturity. Mike has served in several capacities on many cyber and security teams, task forces and committees over his career. He is currently sitting on the Governor’s Arizona Cyber Team (ACT), a member of the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC) and a member of the State of Arizona’s Cyber Disruption Planning Group. Prior to becoming the Arizona CSA, Mike was the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the State of Arizona for 6 years and the CISO for the State of Wisconsin for 8 years. Mike is currently only one of three people in the country that has worked as a CISO for two different state governments. During this time Mike has briefed four Governors offices, many Adjutant General’s and policy advisors on cyber issues, adversaries and threats, creating strategies and recommendations to improve the cyber resilience and maturity of those entities. He supported many high level events such as the Super Bowl, state elections, inaugurations and government officials lying in state. In addition to high level events Mike has organized, participated in and successfully completed multiple cyber exercises in both state’s involving government entities, critical infrastructure private sector companies, and the National Guard. Arizona was named multiple times the most cyber exercised state in the nation according to the Department of Homeland Security. In addition Mike conducted a cyber-exercise involving the Governor’s staff and all members of his cabinet agencies at the State’s emergency operations center (EOC) which was the first time in the history of Arizona government the all members of the Governor’s cabinet agencies were gathered together for an event in the EOC.
Mr. Lettman is a security evangelist and has spoken at many local and national events on the topic of cyber security. He has worked closely with the FBI, USSS, and local law enforcement to conduct many security investigations and help bring the adversaries to justice. He believes that security needs to be a part of an organizations work flow and should be a culture that is pushed from the top down. At the same time he also strongly believes that we all have to accept some risk and security cannot be a deterrent to any organization that desires to take advantage of new technology to be competitive in the marketplace.