Steven Hernandez
Cybersecurity Leader of the Year
Fortunately, the Department of Education had just transitioned a legacy contract and improved many aspects of its resiliency right before the pandemic hit earlier this year, giving it a much-needed technology refresh before the systems were truly put to the test with remote work. Still, there were other surprises, including the closure of the agency’s badging offices right before a surge of onboarding new employees. CISO Steven Hernandez and his leadership team quickly responded with a solution to onboard everyone virtually, what he estimates as two months of design, engineering, security and configuration work completed over five days. “It was an incredible achievement of contracting, security, planning and collaboration that allowed us to move at an intense speed while remaining secure,” he said.
