Cyber Focus: Cybersecurity, National Security, and Critical Infrastructure

Frank Cilluffo / McCrary Institute
  • 5.0 (18)
  • Government
  • Updated Weekly

As cyber threats evolve faster than policy, Cyber Focus delivers executive-level briefings on cybersecurity, national security, and critical infrastructure. From the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security at Auburn University, host Frank Cilluffo speaks with senior leaders across government, industry, and the intelligence community about ransomware, state-sponsored threats, AI, and the systems we all rely on—energy, water, telecom, and supply chains. Each episode focuses on real-world risk tradeoffs and practical steps organizations can take to strengthen resilience.

  1. 2d ago

    25 Years After 9/11: Lessons in Modern Homeland Defense with Michael Chertoff

    Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff joins Frank Cilluffo for a firsthand account of that day and the national security transformation that followed. Chertoff recalls arriving at the FBI command center as the attacks unfolded, hearing the order to shoot down the fourth plane and confronting the urgent question of whether more attacks were coming. He also describes the information-sharing barriers exposed by 9/11 and the effort to bring agencies with different missions and cultures together under the newly created Department of Homeland Security. The conversation then turns to the threats facing the country today. Chertoff explains why terrorism has become more distributed and difficult to detect, how cyberattacks and artificial intelligence are changing homeland security, and why the United States must remain vigilant without treating every risk as something that can be eliminated entirely. Main topics Michael Chertoff's memories of September 11 Building DHS and breaking down information silos How the terrorist threat has evolved Cyber, AI and critical infrastructure Vigilance and managing risk Key quotes "Within minutes after I arrived, we heard about the third plane hitting the Pentagon, and then I remember sitting in the command center and hearing the order being relayed to shoot down the fourth plane." — Michael Chertoff "If you don't coordinate at the federal level, you run the risk of again having another missed opportunity to stop a terrorist attack." — Michael Chertoff "We've undermined those big terrorist organizations, but now we have very small networks or even individuals who are acting because they're being prompted or even on their own, they're getting radicalized." — Michael Chertoff "The distributed nature of terrorism now, and the fact that we now have domestic terrorists, indigenous to the U.S., means that the process of detecting is much more difficult." — Michael Chertoff "The problem has not gone away. It's simply altered and modified and evolved." — Michael Chertoff "What you have to do is manage the risk by understanding what's a reasonable amount of risk you have to tolerate." — Michael Chertoff Links and resources About the Guest Michael Chertoff served as U.S. secretary of homeland security from 2005 to 2009, following roles as a federal appeals court judge and assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Criminal Division. He previously supervised the Justice Department's investigation into the 9/11 attacks and is the author of Exploding Data: Reclaiming Our Cyber Security in the Digital Age. He is now co-founder and executive chairman of the Chertoff Group, a global security risk management and advisory firm.

    25 Years After 9/11: Lessons in Modern Homeland Defense with Michael Chertoff

  2. Sep 1 ·  Video

    How DARPA Is Preparing for the Next Technological Surprise with Patrick Lincoln

    Cybersecurity has spent decades in a reactive cycle: find a vulnerability, patch it and wait for the next one. Dr. Patrick Lincoln joins Frank Cilluffo to discuss DARPA's effort to break that cycle by building systems that are inherently secure, private and resilient from the start. They explore lessons from the AI Cyber Challenge, the role of mathematical proof in eliminating vulnerabilities and the challenge of making complex systems trustworthy even when individual components fail. The conversation also examines how research can move beyond isolated demonstrations to strengthen the technologies and infrastructure society increasingly depends on. Main Topics Preventing and providing technological surprise IPTO's return to computer science foundations Inherent security and privacy AI-enabled vulnerability discovery and patching Formal methods and mathematical proof Trust and resilience in megasystems Moving research into real-world use Key Quotes "This back and forth or cat and mouse game has been going on a long time. I'm getting tired of that. And so we're trying to find new foundations to build inherently secure systems and inherently private systems." — Patrick Lincoln "We need power tools to let people do more, better, faster, with quicker reaction time and higher assurance that what they do actually does lead to really fixing the problem and not creating new problems, not causing harm to the system." — Patrick Lincoln "Software is difficult. And so how can you get to high assurance for a complex system involving the analog systems, the sensors and actuators, the digital systems and hardware, and the digital systems and software? And there are processes for this, some of those involving mathematical proof and formal methods." — Patrick Lincoln "If you've got a million subsystems, there will be failures, and perhaps some of them even maliciously so. ... By building these compositional—think internal firewalls—within a complex system, and ways that we can understand the emergent properties of a large collective of systems, ... we can then predict and therefore give assurance about its behavior long term." — Patrick Lincoln "My favorite answer to this problem, the world's most urgent critical problem, I'll say the DARPA answer is improving our collective ability to solve urgent critical problems." — Patrick Lincoln Links and Resources DARPA Information Processing Techniques Office Patrick Lincoln biography DARPA AI Cyber Challenge PROVERS formal-methods program Resilient Software Systems Capstone About the Guest:  Patrick Lincoln is director of the Information Processing Techniques Office at DARPA, where he leads work spanning artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and privacy, and resilient complex systems. Before joining DARPA, Lincoln held senior research leadership roles at SRI, an independent nonprofit research and development institute, where he led multidisciplinary work across computing, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and advanced systems research. Lincoln holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University and a B.S. in computer science from MIT.

    How DARPA Is Preparing for the Next Technological Surprise with Patrick Lincoln

  3. Aug 25 ·  Video

    CI Fortify: Isolation, Recovery and a Minimum Viable America with CISA's Matt Rogers

    If communications fail and operational technology is damaged during a cyber attack, critical infrastructure operators may have to keep essential services running without internet access, outside assistance or readily available replacement hardware. Matt Rogers of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) explains how CI Fortify prepares water, energy and transportation systems for that scenario. He and Frank Cilluffo discuss operating through compromise, uncovering hidden dependencies and testing whether critical systems can isolate and recover before a crisis arrives. Main Topics CI Fortify and emergency planning Operating through compromise Communications outages Hidden IT/OT dependencies Isolation and functional testing OT sovereignty Secure by Design for OT Public service and technical talent Key Quotes "If there is another Colonial Pipeline type incident again... how do we make sure that their incentive structure isn't I go from 100 to 0, it's that I go from 100 to 30? 40, where that... X is defense critical infrastructure, it's health and public safety, because we just can't afford to go to zero for our minimal services. We need sort of a minimum viable America." — Matt Rogers "Nobody is coming to save you unless you've prearranged to be saved, which is a bit grim. But in a communications outage, you can't call for help." — Matt Rogers "The more you tell me you have an air gap, the less I believe you... It's just really unsustainable for a lot of organizations.." — Matt Rogers "Security doesn't have to be frictional and hard. The goal should be to design security such that you are kind of the well-lit path, the easy path, the default state is the secure thing to do." — Matt Rogers Links and Resources CISA: CI Fortify CISA: Secure Connectivity Principles for Operational Technology CISA: ​​Barriers to Secure OT Communication: Why Johnny Can't Authenticate​ CISA: Secure by Design About the Guest: Matthew Rogers, PhD is an Industrial Control Systems cybersecurity expert in CISA's Office of the Technical Director and leads the agency's Secure by Design initiative for Operational Technology. He earned his bachelor's degree in software engineering from Auburn University and later completed a DPhil in Cyber Security at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, focusing on securing legacy OT networks in vehicles. Before joining CISA, Rogers was a founding engineer at Shift5 and worked on broader ICS cybersecurity efforts at MITRE. His work at CISA focuses on translating ICS research and development into practical capabilities for critical infrastructure.

    CI Fortify: Isolation, Recovery and a Minimum Viable America with CISA's Matt Rogers

  4. Aug 18 ·  Video

    Boarding the Dark Fleet: Coast Guard Cyber and Maritime Security with RADM Jason Tama

    The maritime world is more connected than ever, creating new efficiencies—and new ways for cyber incidents to move quickly from shore-based networks to ships operating around the globe. Rear Admiral Jason Tama, Commander of U.S. Coast Guard Cyber Command, joins Frank Cilluffo to explain how the Coast Guard operates across military, intelligence, law-enforcement, regulatory, and homeland-security missions to protect the Marine Transportation System and counter adversaries in cyberspace. The conversation also examines the Coast Guard's latest Cyber Trends and Insights in the Marine Environment report, including cyber operations aboard Dark Fleet vessels, the growing convergence of IT and operational technology, persistent weaknesses in basic cyber defenses, and the importance of working closely with industry. Tama argues that prevention alone will never be enough: maritime operators also need to be prepared to keep functioning through their "worst digital day." Main Topics Covered Coast Guard Cyber Command's three-part mission Title 10, Title 14, and Title 50 authorities Coast Guard integration with U.S. Cyber Command Cyber operations aboard Dark Fleet vessels Cyber risk across ports and maritime infrastructure Public-private operational partnerships Persistent cybersecurity fundamentals International maritime cyber cooperation Key Quotes "You can't wait till the crisis or contingency to bring everyone together." — Rear Admiral Jason Tama "The great thing about ships now is they're all connected all the time. The bad thing is the ships are all connected all the time." — Rear Admiral Jason Tama "We're never going to Cyber our way out of this problem, right? There's no Cyber panacea." — Rear Admiral Jason Tama "Resilience is so important and everybody has to be able to think about and have a plan for how do you continue to operate on your worst digital day because it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when." — Rear Admiral Jason Tama "The work we're doing in the wild from whether it's power plants to cranes to locks and dams ... all over the world, it's really incredible mission work." — Rear Admiral Jason Tama Relevant Links and Resources Cyber Trends and Insights in the Marine Environment (CTIME) Guest Bio Rear Admiral Jason Tama is Commander of U.S. Coast Guard Cyber Command, where he oversees cyberspace operations to defend Coast Guard networks, protect maritime critical infrastructure, and counter adversary activity. He also serves as the Coast Guard's Service Cyber Component Commander to U.S. Cyber Command. Previously, Tama served as Senior Director for Resilience at the National Security Council and as Captain of the Port of New York and New Jersey. He is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and holds advanced degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and MIT Sloan School of Management.

    Boarding the Dark Fleet: Coast Guard Cyber and Maritime Security with RADM Jason Tama

  5. Aug 18 ·  Video

    Private Sector Cyber Offense: What the New White House Memo Does—and Doesn't Do with Mike McLaughlin

    A new White House memorandum aims to bring the private sector more directly into cyber operations against transnational criminal organizations. But turning that policy goal into practice raises immediate questions about legal authority, liability, deconfliction and the risks companies could assume by participating. In this edition of Cyber Focus: To the Point, Frank Cilluffo talks with Mike McLaughlin about what the memorandum does—and does not do—under existing law, what needs to be resolved during the 60-day implementation window, and where private-sector capabilities may be most useful without interfering with ongoing military, intelligence or law-enforcement operations. Main Topics Covered Private-sector cyber offense Legal authority and liability Deconfliction with government operations Risks for participating companies The 60-day implementation window Where private-sector capabilities may fit Key Quotes "The [National Security Presidential Memorandum] isn't actually creating an authority; it's creating a record… that the administration or federal law enforcement can point to and say we gave you very clear authority… and if you step outside of that, you're on your own. — Mike McLaughlin "Deconfliction is a big problem because when you're dealing with the National Security Agency and the CIA and the FBI and US Cyber Command and CNMF and, you know, US SOCOM, and then you bring in ASD from Australia or GCHQ from the UK, and we're trying to deconflict all of this blue activity in cyberspace, it's really challenging." — Mike McLaughlin "If we start contracting with companies to conduct offensive operations, those companies become combatants." — Mike McLaughlin "For me, if the authorized target set are cryptocurrency wallets or keys or on-chain infrastructure that's being used to support transnational criminal organizations, that's an area that the private sector can cleanly operate without risking running afoul of traditional intelligence community activities, law enforcement operations, or military cyber operations." — Mike McLaughlin Relevant Links and Resources White House national security presidential memorandum National Cybersecurity Strategy Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) Buchanan Ingersoll Rooney — Mike McLaughlin Guest Bio Mike McLaughlin co-leads the cyber practice at Buchanan Ingersoll Rooney. He previously served in government roles involving U.S. Cyber Command and the Cyber National Mission Force.

    Private Sector Cyber Offense: What the New White House Memo Does—and Doesn't Do with Mike McLaughlin

  6. Aug 11 ·  Video

    AI, Risk, and the Future of the Federal Workforce with OPM Director Scott Kupor

    The federal government is competing for technology and cybersecurity talent at the same time AI is beginning to reshape how that workforce operates. OPM Director Scott Kupor argues that meeting both challenges requires more than new tools or recruiting campaigns: government needs a personnel system that better reflects how people build careers today, rewards performance and adaptability, and creates room for responsible experimentation. Kupor joins Frank Cilluffo to discuss Tech Force and the push to bring more early-career technologists into public service; why he believes agencies should focus on practical, near-term AI gains rather than long-range plans that may quickly become obsolete; and what his years in Silicon Valley taught him about risk, execution and talent. They also explore what Washington and the technology industry misunderstand about one another—and why U.S. economic and national security increasingly depend on getting that relationship right. Main Topics Tech Force and two-year tours of public service Recruiting cyber and technology talent into government The federal government's early-career workforce gap Performance, merit and tenure in federal employment AI productivity and the changing federal workforce AI literacy and the continuing role of human judgment "Permissioned innovation" and responsible risk-taking Execution, adaptability and decision-making under uncertainty What Washington and Silicon Valley can learn from one another Key Quotes "I think every person coming out of high school or college, hopefully we can convince them spending 2 years in government is good for the country and good for them. It's really that simple." – Scott Kupor "If we're gonna attract early career people, they have to be able to come in an environment where their performance and their merit is a lot more important than how many years they've been here." – Scott Kupor "We should not be building, in my mind, the 2040 or 2050 plan for AI, because the very honest answer is we have no idea." – Scott Kupor "Everybody needs to develop some kind of AI literacy, right? So, and not just people who are software developers." – Scott Kupor "So the good companies, the good organizations, the good nonprofits, whatever it is, you have a theory of the case, but then you actually have to be willing to say, okay, our theory was wrong for X number of reasons and we're gonna change it. And I think it's very hard intellectually for people to do that. But that, I think, is the difference, ultimately, between successful and unsuccessful organizations." – Scott Kupor Links and Resources: Scott Kupor's OPM Blog About the guest:  Scott Kupor is director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where he leads efforts to build a more accountable, mission-driven federal workforce. Before joining OPM, he was a managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, which he helped build into one of the country's largest venture capital firms. He previously held senior technology leadership roles, chaired the National Venture Capital Association and taught entrepreneurship at Stanford. He is also the author of Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It.

    AI, Risk, and the Future of the Federal Workforce with OPM Director Scott Kupor

  7. Aug 4 ·  Video

    How Do You Rebuild Systems That Can't Go Offline? with Peraton's Tom Afferton

    Tom Afferton [00:00:00]: If you're introducing security controls or a maintenance activity or modernization that interrupts that operation, then you're no better off than if there was a cyber interruption.   Frank Cilluffo [00:00:16]: Welcome to Cyber Focus from the McCrary Institute, where we explore the people and ideas shaping and defending our digital world. I'm your host, Frank Cilluffo, and this week I have the privilege to sit down with Tom Afferton. Tom is president of the Cyber and Intelligence Service at Peraton, where he oversees a number of the most mission-critical entities inside the US government and has been there for a number of years. Prior to that, he also was at AT&T and many years at Northrop Grumman. Tom, thank you so much for joining us today.   Tom Afferton [00:00:50]: Happy to be here.   Frank Cilluffo [00:00:50]: So I thought I'd start at the beginning, and a lot of your clients are mission-critical.   Tom Afferton [00:00:57]: Yes.   Frank Cilluffo [00:00:57]: And very different than a traditional IT enterprise. And I'd be curious what that looks like. Why is that different and what your initial thoughts are there?   Tom Afferton [00:01:07]: So when we look at a lot of the systems services that we protect, you have to think about the consequences of them not operating. When we think about, you know, a large-scale modernization as well, right, you have to think about the whole point of, of cybersecurity is to protect that institution, to protect its operability. So if you're introducing security controls or a maintenance activity or modernization that interrupts that operation, then you're no better off than if there was a cyber interruption, right? And so when we go through, again, thinking about something like a modernization, we take an approach we call sort of a layered uplift, which is you introduce that new capability in an incremental way. You make sure that it's instrumented so that as you introduce it, you're monitoring, is it doing what you expected it to do? And then over time, it takes on more responsibilities. And then ultimately, you can turn off the legacy environment. Now, there's of course prioritization involved, deciding, you know, where are you going to start? Where are you going to build in that resilience and redundancy? Something that Nick Andersen over at CISA has introduced, the term of ruthless prioritization.   Frank Cilluffo [00:02:37]: Mm-hmm.   Tom Afferton [00:02:38]: And I think that's helpful. It's helpful when thinking about resilience planning. It's helpful when thinking about planning resources up front, coordination, but it's then also helpful in thinking about incident response. And when I've heard him speak and he's explained it, what he's talking about is going beyond just prioritizing a category of critical infrastructure. It's understanding that, you know, the key mission, the crown jewel that we need to have keep operating, we need to understand the assets associated with it.   Frank Cilluffo [00:03:13]: Mm-hmm.   Tom Afferton [00:03:14]: So what GPU is that workload or that workflow operating in what cluster and what data centers powered by what part of the grid? And knowing that sort of connection between the critical infrastructure and the mission and the physical and the technical infrastructure allows you to then prioritize.   Frank Cilluffo [00:03:32]: Because you really can't pause operations during an upgrade, right?   Tom Afferton [00:03:36]: Absolutely.   Frank Cilluffo [00:03:37]: So it's a challenge. These are— because you're also behind a number of critical systems that most Americans don't think about every day.   Tom Afferton [00:03:44]: That's right.   Frank Cilluffo [00:03:45]: One in particular that's gotten a little bit of news, and I know we can't get into great detail here, is FAA and the modernization.   Tom Afferton [00:03:51]: Yeah. And that's an interesting one. Peraton's very proud to be part of that. The administration has framed that as one of the most important modernization projects in American history. And part of that is because, you know, our air travel depends upon it, right? It's critical to our economy, but it's also large and complex. One of my colleagues, Justin Sciaccio, is the one leading that for Peraton, and he recently met with stakeholders in the press along with Secretary Duffy to talk about the program.   Frank Cilluffo [00:04:23]: Mm-hmm.   Tom Afferton [00:04:23]: And what Secretary Duffy explained is that they were looking to do something radically different in terms of program management and bring in an integration partner. And Peraton were— we were fortunate to be selected to do that. And one of the reasons that they selected us is that we've brought a revolutionary agentic AI technology to the equation.   Frank Cilluffo [00:04:44]: Mm-hmm.   Tom Afferton [00:04:45]: And what Justin has been explaining that we're doing is we are ingesting I think it was like something 5.7 million records of schedule data as well as historical information about projects that have completed, and then have the AI start to do analysis around that so that we can stress test schedules, you know, we can identify gaps and whatnot. And he had this quote that sort of went viral that he said, like, we're not looking to replace the humans. We want to enable them to have superhuman insights. And that's what we're really— what we're finding here. And it's just the schedule, all the interdependencies, all the suppliers, all the different sites. It's just too much for one person to consume. And so providing those insights has been part of the value add there.   Frank Cilluffo [00:05:29]: And, you know, you can't escape without us getting into a conversation around AI and agentic AI.   Tom Afferton [00:05:34]: Sure.   Frank Cilluffo [00:05:36]: What it means for threat hunters. But before jumping there, I mean, you've got technology time cycles that are moving so fast, but a lot of the systems you're dealing with here are in very different timelines. And we've had a number of discussions around the energy sector and grid, and we don't have to go there, but a lot of their OT systems are 25, 30 years old, and they're being netted with IoT devices and it brings about a new attack surface. How do you reconcile sort of that balance between a fast-moving tech cycle and not always so fast critical infrastructure sector?   Tom Afferton [00:06:13]: So I'll jump to the answer, but then I want to go back and I will give you an example of the type of work that our folks are doing because I think it illustrates the sort of both ends of the spectrum.   Frank Cilluffo [00:06:24]: And your an EE background, right?   Tom Afferton [00:06:25]: Right, thank you. Yes.   Frank Cilluffo [00:06:26]: Stanford and UVA.   Tom Afferton [00:06:27]: So go Hoos. So—   Frank Cilluffo [00:06:30]: Blue and orange. You know the history between the football uniforms between Auburn, UVA, and Clemson.   Tom Afferton [00:06:27]: No, I don't.    Frank Cilluffo [00:06:36]: All right. This is— sorry, but—   Tom Afferton [00:06:38]: That's okay.   Frank Cilluffo [00:06:39]: We will include this in the episode. So initially, the first football coach at Auburn was a football coach at UVA, brought the uniforms because they were so expensive. And then he went to Clemson and brought the uniforms. That's why it turned less than blue. It was a little more purple. So true story.   Tom Afferton [00:06:55]: I did not know that.   Frank Cilluffo [00:06:56]: Yeah.   Tom Afferton [00:06:57]: So going back to the question about sort of the pace of technology, right? So if, you know, we were to talk 6 months ago, we would have been talking about buying back time to the analysts. And that's still important and something that I do want to talk about. We look now within the age of Mythos and, you know, the ability for agentic AI to produce vulnerabilities at an unprecedented speed and scale, right, the cutting edge is now thinking about automating remediations and sort of the bottleneck has shifted down. But before we go to either of those, I think it's helpful to just have— let's have a practical example. Like, this is a day in the life of some of my folks.   Frank Cilluffo [00:07:37]: Mm-hmm.   Tom Afferton [00:07:38]: I have some folks that are supporting CISA in the Code and Media Analysis Team, and they are involved with malware analysis and ultimately incident response for critical infrastructure. So without getting into any details, right, one recent situation- they were brought in as a result of some classified intel to take a look at some malware. They did some analysis to determine kind of what vulnerabilities it was associated with. They determined that it was associated with some edge devices and sort of double alarm bells went off because number one, they were edge devices that could be used in a carrier network, that OT was being used, basically programmable logic controllers sitting behind these edge devices that had no inherent security in them. So if you penetrated this edge device, you could get access to the programmable logic controllers and control that environment. And then secondly, these edge devices were also in federal civilian executive branch. So from— and you go back to in a critical environment, what do you need to think about? Well, one is consequences.   Frank Cilluffo [00:08:49]: Mm-hmm.   Tom Afferton [00:08:49]: So, okay, This has potentially wide-ranging impact. The second then is sort of thinking about it from a risk standpoint. And so now these folks are going off and looking on— they know the right blog posts. There is some of the monitoring that CISA does. Combine that with some tradecraft on the dark web to say, are these exploits being published? You know, are there any IP addresses associated with it? Yo

    How Do You Rebuild Systems That Can't Go Offline? with Peraton's Tom Afferton

  8. Jul 28 ·  Video

    Who Will Defend America in the Cyber Age? with Rep. Chrissy Houlahan

    Because cybersecurity has become central to national security and military strategy, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan says the United States needs to create a dedicated Cyber Force to prepare for the challenges ahead. Rep. Houlahan joins Frank Cilluffo to discuss why the military must adapt to the cyber age, how AI and strategic competition with China are reshaping national security, and why developing the next generation of technical talent may be America's greatest long-term advantage. Together, they explore how better workforce development, military modernization, and stronger public-private partnerships can help prepare the United States for future threats. Main Topics Cyber's evolution The case for a Cyber Force Military modernization Cyber Command's role Building the cyber workforce Project-based learning Neurodiversity and national service Breaking down organizational silos Competition with China AI and emerging technologies Key Quotes "When you think about cyber, cybersecurity, cyber warfare, cyber anything, it's always the weakest link. It's the seam. And so in our economy and in our military industrial complex, we need to be focused on the weakest links." — Representative Chrissy Houlahan "I believe that [cyber] should be its own domain because of where it's headed or likely headed in the next 50 or so years. ... I think inevitably 50, 100 years from now, we will be glad for the change that... was a Cyber Force." — Rep. Chrissy Houlahan "I would argue we don't have time not to. … If we look forward half a century, will we regret that we didn't take the time, didn't spend the resources to be as competitive as we possibly could be in this particular area?" — Rep. Chrissy Houlahan "One of the things that I'm most concerned about in our way of viewing our workforce right now is we are maligning smart people. We are somehow othering people who think technologically, who pursue degrees in hard stuff and that's bananas." — Representative Chrissy Houlahan "If we turn our backs to the next generation of talent, make it too hard for people to be educated here and take those American values either with them or keep them here, we are going to turn around and wonder why everyone's left." — Rep. Chrissy Houlahan Relevant Links and Resources Rep. Chrissy Houlahan CSIS Commission on U.S. Cyber Force Generation About the Guest:  Representative Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) is an Air Force veteran, engineer and former entrepreneur who represents Pennsylvania's 6th District. She earned an engineering degree from Stanford through ROTC and later received a master's in Technology and Policy from MIT. In Congress, she serves on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where her work includes defense modernization, cybersecurity and the military's technical workforce.

    Who Will Defend America in the Cyber Age? with Rep. Chrissy Houlahan
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As cyber threats evolve faster than policy, Cyber Focus delivers executive-level briefings on cybersecurity, national security, and critical infrastructure. From the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security at Auburn University, host Frank Cilluffo speaks with senior leaders across government, industry, and the intelligence community about ransomware, state-sponsored threats, AI, and the systems we all rely on—energy, water, telecom, and supply chains. Each episode focuses on real-world risk tradeoffs and practical steps organizations can take to strengthen resilience.

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