Weeks after CISO announcement, Katie Arrington moves into DOD CIO role
SUMMERVILLE, SC - JUNE 14: House of Representatives candidate Katie Arrington talks with members of the media outside Summerville Presbyterian Church during a midterm primary election on June 14, 2022 in Summerville, South Carolina. Arrington is now the Defense Department's tech chief. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
A defense official said that Arrington, who was previously accused of disclosing classified data, does not concurrently have the role of DOD CISO.
Katie Arrington, the former South Carolina state lawmaker who helped steer Pentagon cybersecurity contracting policy before being placed on leave amid accusations that she disclosed classified data from a military intelligence agency, is now performing duties of the Defense Department’s chief information officer.
The job announcement posted by the Office of the Chief Information Officer’s LinkedIn account comes just two weeks after Arrington announced she was the DOD’s new chief information security officer. Leslie Beavers, who had been serving as acting CIO since John Sherman stepped down last June, will resume her primary position as principal deputy CIO, the LinkedIn post adds.
Arrington “has begun performing the duties of DOD CIO and does not concurrently have the role of DOD CISO,” a defense official told Nextgov/FCW. The statement suggests that a permanent CISO for the Defense Department has been picked or will be picked in her place. No reason for the new position was provided.
Arrington joined the Defense Department in 2019 — following a single term in the South Carolina House — and served in the Pentagon’s Office of Acquisition and Sustainment in President Donald Trump’s first term. She was a major cultivator of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program, better known as CMMC, which encourages DOD contractors to augment their baseline cyber posture to shield the Defense Department and its private sector partners from cyberattacks.
Amid accusations of her intelligence disclosures, the National Security Agency suspended her security clearance in 2021.
In 2022, she reached a legal settlement with the government and resigned from her role, and later ran for an unsuccessful bid for Congress where she lost against Republican House lawmaker Nancy Mace of South Carolina. In her legal tussle, she was represented by Mark Zaid, a prominent national security lawyer whose security clearance was recently targeted by Trump.
The exact reasons that led to the suspension and her subsequent leave were classified. She argued that the suspension was “in my perception, a politically influenced action driven to silence me.”