Earlier this month, the RSA Conference in San Francisco drew crowds of tens of thousands of cybersecurity experts and practitioners, including a huge cohort of cyber officials from the federal government. One of those was Bailey Bickley, the chief of defense industrial base cybersecurity at the NSA.

I caught up with Bickley during some of her downtime at RSA to discuss the big takeaways from this year’s conference, as well as all of the work the NSA is doing to help bolster the security of defense contractors, particularly smaller ones that can’t always afford to secure themselves. From CMMC and the new DIB cyber strategy to the free services the NSA is providing to members of the DIB community, we cover it all. Now, let’s go to my conversation with Bailey Bickley.