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The Cybersecurity Program at The Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies presents “Managing Our Nation’s Cyber Risk,” a conversation between Alejandro Mayorkas, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Jason Healey, Senior Research Scholar at Columbia SIPA and Member, SIWPS.

As the recent cyber agreement between President Obama and President Xi have shown, cyber issues are increasingly at the forefront of international affairs and public policy. This discussion with one of the top US government officials for cyber issues will cover topics like protecting the US government and critical infrastructure, information sharing and public-private sector partnerships, business cyber risk, working with international partners and more.

Alejandro Mayorkas was sworn in as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security on December 23, 2013. Since 2009, following his nomination by President Obama and subsequent confirmation, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas served as the Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency charged with operating the largest immigration system in the world. In that position, he led a workforce of 18,000 members throughout more than 250 offices worldwide and oversaw a $3 billion annual budget. While at USCIS he oversaw a number of important programs and enhancements, including the implementation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) as well as important reforms that safeguard our nation’s security, and ensure the integrity of the immigration system.

Prior to his appointment at USCIS, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas was a partner in the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP. In 2008, the National Law Journal recognized Deputy Secretary Mayorkas as one of the “50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America.” In 1998, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas was nominated by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate to be the United States Attorney for the Central District of California, becoming the youngest U.S. Attorney to serve the nation at that time. In addition to leading an office of 240 Assistant U.S. Attorneys, Mayorkas served as the Vice-Chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Subcommittee on Civil Rights and as a member of the Subcommittee on Ethics in Government. From 1989 to 1998, Mayorkas served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. Deputy Secretary Mayorkas is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and received his law degree from Loyola Law School.

Jason Healey is Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, specializing in cyber conflict, competition and cooperation. Prior to this, he was the founding director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative of the Atlantic Council where he remains a Senior Fellow. His work as a practitioner and researcher has focused on international cooperation, competition and conflict in cyberspace, including as the editor of the first history of conflict in cyberspace, A Fierce Domain: Cyber Conflict, 1986 to 2012 and co-authored the book Cyber Security Policy Guidebook by Wiley. His ideas on cyber topics have been widely published in over a hundred articles and essays by the Atlantic Council, National Research Council; academic journals from Brown and Georgetown Universities; the Aspen Strategy Group and other think tanks. A Fierce Domain was reviewed favorably in the Economist and by numerous government leaders, including the President of Estonia and former heads of the CIA and NSA. Healey is also president of the Cyber Conflict Studies Association and previously was a lecturer in cyber policy at Georgetown University, and lecturer in cyber national security studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Healey has unique experience working issues of cyber conflict and security spanning fifteen years across the public and private sectors. As Director for Cyber Infrastructure Protection at the White House from 2003 to 2005, he helped advise the President and coordinated US efforts to secure US cyberspace and critical infrastructure. He has worked twice for Goldman Sachs, first to anchor their team for responding to cyber attacks and later, as an executive director in Hong Kong to manage Asia-wide business continuity and create the bank’s regional crisis management capabilities to respond to earthquakes, tsunamis, or terrorist attacks. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, his efforts as vice chairman of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center created bonds between the finance sector and government that remain strong today. Starting his career in the United States Air Force, Healey earned two Meritorious Service Medals for his early work in cyber operations at Headquarters Air Force at the Pentagon and as a plankowner (founding member) of the Joint Task Force – Computer Network Defense, the world’s first joint cyber warfighting unit. He has degrees from the United States Air Force Academy (Political Science), Johns Hopkins University (Liberal Arts) and James Madison University (Information Security).