Featured Speaker: Honorable Howard A. Schmidt, CISSP, CSSLP

 

Honorable Howard A. Schmidt, CISSP, CSSLP

Former Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator

Howard A. Schmidt has had a long distinguished career in defense, law enforcement, and corporate security spanning more than 40 years. He brings together the talents of business, defense, intelligence, law enforcement, privacy, academia and international relations through his distinguished career. He retired as Special Assistant to the President and the Cybersecurity Coordinator for the President Obama. In this role Mr. Schmidt was responsible for coordinating interagency Cybersecurity policy development and implementation and is responsible coordinating engagement with federal, state, local, international, and private sector Cybersecurity partners.



Previously, Mr. Schmidt was the President and CEO of the Information Security Forum (ISF), a nonprofit international corporate membership association comprising of approximately 300 members. The ISF conducts research and develops best practices in cyber security, risk management and critical infrastructure protection.

Before ISF, he served as Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Security Strategist for eBay Inc. He also served in the position of Chief Security Strategist for the US CERT Partners Program for the National Cyber Security Division, Department of Homeland Security.
Before eBay, he served as the Vice Chair of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board and as the Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security for the White House. Prior to the White House, Howard was Chief Security Officer for Microsoft Corp., where his duties included CISO, CSO and forming and directing the Trustworthy Computing Security Strategies Group.

Before Microsoft, Mr. Schmidt was a supervisory special agent and director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) Computer Forensics Lab and Computer Crime and Information Warfare Division. While there, he established the first dedicated computer forensics lab in the government and was responsible for Criminal and Counter Intelligence investigations against DoD systems.

Before AFOSI, Mr. Schmidt was with the FBI at the National Drug Intelligence Center, where he headed the Computer Exploitation Team. He is recognized as one of the pioneers in the field of computer forensics and computer evidence collection. Before working at the FBI, Mr. Schmidt was a city police officer from 1983 to 1994 for the Chandler Police Department in Arizona. In 11 years as a local first responder he dealt with numerous issues surrounding emergency response to local incidents. He was instrumental in selecting, designing and operation of interoperable communications and public safety response system.

Mr. Schmidt served with the U.S. Air Force in various roles from 1967 to 1983, both in active duty and in the civil service. He had served in the Arizona Air National Guard as computer communications specialist from 1989 until 1998 when he transferred to the U.S. Army Reserves as a Special Agent, Criminal Investigation Division where he continues to serve with the computer crime investigations unit at CID HQ. He has testified as an expert witness in federal and military courts in the areas of computer crime, computer forensics and Internet crime.

Mr. Schmidt also serves as the international president of the nonprofit, Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) and was the co-founder and first president of the Information Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC). He is the Vice-Chair of the board of Directors for (ISC)2 and Security Strategist for the board. He is a former executive board member of the International Organization of Computer Evidence, and served as the co-chairman of the Federal Computer Investigations Committee. He is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists. He had served as a board member for the Cyber Crime Advisory Board of the National White Collar Crime Center.

He served as an augmented member to the President Clinton’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in the formation of an Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P). He has testified before congressional committees on computer security and cybercrime, and has been instrumental in the creation of public and private partnerships and information-sharing initiatives. He is regularly featured on cable, broadcast and international media as an expert about cyber-security and critical infrastructure protection and business implications related to this topic. He is a co-author of the Black Book on Corporate Security and author of “Patrolling Cyber Space, Lessons Learned from a Lifetime in Data Security.” He has received numerous awards and recognitions from government and private industry including the CSO Magazine “Compass Award” , Baseline Magazine’s “The 50 Most Influential People in Business IT” as well as the Federal 100 Award to name just a few.

Mr. Schmidt has been a member of the Information Security Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB) to advise the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget on information security and privacy issues. He has also been a member of the Permanent Stakeholders Group (PSG) for the European Network Information Security Agency (ENISA). He was a member of the High Level Experts Group (HLEG) for the ITU and the Global Cyber-security Agenda (GCA).

Mr. Schmidt holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration (BSBA) and a master’s degree in organizational management (MAOM) from the University of Phoenix. He also holds an Honorary Doctorate degree in Humane Letters. Howard was an Professor of Practice at GA Tech, GTISC, Professor of Research at Idaho State University and Adjunct Distinguished Fellow with Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab and a Distinguished Fellow of the Ponemon Privacy Institute.

Howard is a Ham Radio operator (W7HAS), a private pilot, outdoorsman and an avid Harley-Davidson rider. He is married to Raemarie J. Schmidt, a forensic scientist and researcher and instructor in the field of computer forensics.