Mike Witt

Mike Witt is NASA’s Associate Chief Information Officer (ACIO) for Cybersecurity & Privacy and Senior Agency Information Security Officer (SAISO). He joined the agency on February 5, 2017 as the Deputy SAISO. Before NASA, he served with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) supporting the Director of the National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center and the Director of Network Security Deployment to enhance existing EINSTEIN 3 - Accelerated (E3A) technology and cyber detection/response operational capabilities.

Prior to DHS, he held multiple roles at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) including Director, Computer Security Incident Response Center, where he was responsible for the agency’s incident handling, analysis, and vulnerability management. While there, he created an Emerging Threats Team to provide advanced analysis, analytics, network forensics, and cyber threat intelligence capabilities.

In January 2011, Mr. Witt was detailed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), by White House request, as the interim Chief Information Security Officer to implement the cybersecurity program for the new agency. In one year at CFPB, he deployed the organizational structure, manpower requirements, strategic goals, objectives, budget, and initiatives to assure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of CFPB information and information assets while meeting regulatory information security compliance requirements.

Before joining the IRS, he served as the Director, United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) within DHS. There he also played a pivotal role in the creation of the EINSTEIN Program, Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative, NIST Special Publication 800-61 Rev 1, National Security Presidential Directive 54, and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23.

Additionally, Mr. Witt previously served as Chief, Incident Handling and Strategic Analysis at the Department of Defense Computer Emergency Response Team/Joint Task Force Computer Network Defense/Joint Task Force Global Network Operations, responsible for incident response, analysis, vulnerability coordination, and global correlation of network activities across the Department of Defense Global Information Grid. Mr. Witt was Principal Security Engineer with Riptech, Inc., performing controlled penetration and security assessments and conducting incident response and forensics investigations for Fortune 500 companies and several government institutions.

His military experience includes more than 10 years with the United States Army, providing information systems and technology support to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Information Systems Agency, and various Army commands. He is a recipient of the 2009 IRS CTO Award and 2008 Federal CIO Council Leadership Award.