(ISC)² honors information security leaders in government

The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium -- more commonly know as (ISC)² -- honored a wide range of federal information security executives at the group's annual awards ceremony last week.

Among the winners of the U.S. Government Information Security Leadership Awards was the Marine Corps' Cyber Protection Team -- for its training and capacity-building efforts, which include the development of a cyber protection toolkit that has become the standard for all such toolkits at the Defense Department.

The other government awardees were:

• The Department of Homeland Security's John Simms for speeding the deployment of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program to 21 agencies in a way that also reduced costs.
• The Education Department's Benjamin Bergersen for making MAX.gov shared services the first agency-run software-as-a-service offering to receive Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program authorization.
• The U.S. Army's Michael Redman for identifying a training gap among DOD cybersecurity professionals and crafting in-house courses that more than 300 of his colleagues have now used.
• The State Department's Samuel Maroon for his volunteer efforts teaching and managing the Wounded Warrior Cyber Combat Academy -- a program administered by the Federal IT Security Institute that trains injured veterans for careers in cybersecurity.

In addition, U.S. Navy Reservist Wajahat Qureshi received the (ISC)² Foundation's USA Cyber Warrior Scholarship for 2015, the vulnerability research and coordination team at Carnegie Mellon University's CERT Division was honored as the most valuable industry partner, and former (ISC)² Executive Director W. Hord Tipton was chosen for the organization’s F. Lynn McNulty Tribute Award.