Category Archives: Karen Evans

Energy Department shakes up cyber leadership with appointment of ex-NSA official

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Department of Energy officials have tapped a veteran of the National Security Agency to be the department’s top cyber official and lead an office that helps protect U.S. industry from hacking threats. In a message to department staff Thursday reviewed by CyberScoop, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said Alexander Gates’ decades of experience in signals intelligence and cyber operations would be critical in running the department’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response. Gates replaces Karen Evans, a former Office of Management and Budget official and DOE chief information officer, who was sworn in as assistant secretary of Energy for cybersecurity, energy security and emergency response in September 2018. Gates will have “delegated authority” to lead the cybersecurity office, meaning he can do so without being a Senate-confirmed assistant secretary. Then-Secretary of Energy Rick Perry established the cybersecurity office two years ago as part of a push by the department […]

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White House taps Karen Evans as assistant Energy secretary for cybersecurity

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President Donald Trump plans to nominate Karen Evans, a veteran of federal IT security, to be assistance secretary of Energy for cybersecurity, energy security and emergency response, the White House announced late Tuesday. A former top IT official at the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush, Evans has also served as the Department of Energy’s chief information officer. More recently, she was an IT adviser on Trump’s transition team. Outside of government, she has been an advocate of improving the nation’s cybersecurity workforce through the U.S. Cyber Challenge. Evans would rejoin DOE at a momentous time for the department as it looks to execute a new cybersecurity strategy and boost the defenses of U.S. energy companies through an information-sharing program. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has been outspoken lately about the industry’s cybersecurity challenges. “The sustained and growing threat of cyberattacks to our energy infrastructure requires us to think […]

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When feds want to hire a cyber-ninja, time is more important than money

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The time it takes to actually onboard a new federal employee is a much more significant problem than pay and benefits when it comes to hiring top cybersecurity talent for U.S. agencies, former federal officials and private sector executives said Thursday. Conventional wisdom holds that federal government jobs can’t compete with the private sector on remuneration, but money generally is not the issue for highly skilled cybersecurity workers, panel members said at the Dell Technologies Digital Transformation Summit produced by FedScoop. “The challenge on the government side is time to hire,” said Karen Evans, a former senior technology official with the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush and now the national director of the U.S. Cyber Challenge. It generally takes months — sometimes more than a year — to complete the background check and other bureaucratic procedures to start someone as a federal employee. And that, explained Evans, is more of a problem […]

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Cyber EO out in a week or so, says exec briefed by White House

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The White House is putting the finishing touches on a new draft of the cybersecurity executive order originally scheduled for signature in January, and it could be done in a week or so, former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano said Monday. “My sense is that they’re moving along and maybe within a week or so we could […]

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Bush’s federal IT chief hopes for role in Trump administration

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Karen Evans, the former head of federal IT under President George W. Bush, told CyberScoop she hopes to serve in the current administration. “I would be honored if the Trump administration asked me to come in and work on our nation’s problems,” she said in an interview on the sidelines of the RSA security conference Tuesday. She added […]

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