Chris DeRusha
Federal Leadership
As the federal chief information security officer, Chris DeRusha has been instrumental in leading the unified push to enhance and modernize the cybersecurity defense of federal civilian branch networks as mandated in the 2021 cybersecurity executive order issued by the Biden administration. Speaking in October at CyberTalks, DeRusha said the executive branch agency is focused on introducing measures that will codify long-term cultural change, such as listing costs associated with the cybersecurity approach as a specific budget line item. On the topic of zero trust, while OMB issued memorandum M-22-09 in January this year to provide a roadmap for the implementation of zero trust by 2024, it’s not meant to be the end-all-be-all. “We didn’t seek to write the pure end-state document for zero trust,” DeRusha said.
