President Trump on Wednesday announced his intent to appoint Bryan Ware, who is currently in charge of cyber, infrastructure and resiliency policy at the Department of Homeland Security, to be the new assistant director for cyber security within the department’s agency responsible for working with the federal government and private sector on boosting the nation’s overall cyber security posture.
Ware will succeed Jeanette Manfra, the current assistant director for Cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) when she departs at the end of the year for a job with Google Cloud, part of Alphabet’s [GOOG] Google company. Manfra, highly touted for her work at CISA, will be Global Director of Security and Compliance at Google Cloud.
Ware has been assistant secretary for Cyber, Infrastructure, and Resilience Policy within the DHS Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans since February. Before that, he spent five months as a senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
In his policy role, Ware “is responsible for leading DHS policy development in support of department-wide efforts to reduce national risks with a focus on critical infrastructure cybersecurity, federal network security, countering cyber-crime, and improving the security and resilience of the global cyber ecosystem, as well as national resilience initiatives that enhance Federal, State and local government and community preparedness and response capabilities,” according to his biography on the DHS website.
In his new role, Ware will be a key player next year in helping ensure the cyber security of the 2020 presidential elections, working with interagency partners across the federal government as well as state and local governments and their respective jurisdictions that oversee the machinery of elections.
CISA is led by Christopher Krebs who is also experienced in cyber and infrastructure security policy and is usually the leading spokesman in public and on Capitol Hill for the agency’s cyber security mission. Manfra also often speaks at public security events and testifies before Congress.
Ware brings technology, entrepreneurial and management expertise to his cyber security job, having served as the CEO of the cyber security firm Haystax Technology for more than two years until June 2018 when it was acquired by Fishtech Group, and as the company’s chief technology officer for nearly three years until January 2016. Before that, he was the co-founder and CEO of Digital Sandbox, Inc., a predictive analytics company providing cloud-based solutions to the security and intelligence community until it was acquired by Haystax in 2013.
Ware also has a degree in Applied Optics from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and worked for defense and security contractors Sonalysts, Camber Corp., which is now part of Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII], and Jaycor, which is now part of L3Harris Technologies [LHX].