Kevin Williams, CISO for City of Austin talks about his experience and trends in his department

HACKED: Into the minds of Cybersecurity leaders

On this edition of HACKED: Into the minds of Cybersecurity leaders, host Ben Hotaling welcomes Kevin Williams, the first CISO for the city of Austin Texas. Kevin joins the podcast to discuss his experience developing the CISO role and what his group is working on. During Overrated/Underrated, we get his opinion on the importance of a technical background for the CISO role. Kevin is responsible for ensuring the security of all information and information systems for 15,000 City employees and almost 1 million residents in the 11th largest city in the US. Kevin has over 20 years of experience working within IT. He served in the United States Air Force for nine years as a computer programmer and enterprise architect, where he worked on IT projects at many notable locations including the Air Force Information Warfare Center, NORAD command center inside Cheyenne Mountain, and in the subterranean maintenance levels of a nuclear missile silo. Since his enlistment, Kevin has worked for Rackspace Hosting, Frost Bank, UTHSCSA, and the State of Texas DIR. Kevin holds a Master of Science degree in Information Systems & Security from the Center for Cyber-Security Policy at Our Lady of the Lake University, a NSA-certified Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Software Engineering. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Information Systems Security Architecture Professional (ISSAP), Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP), and Certified CISO (CCISO).