The GIST of Govt IT

Kenneth Bible walked into the DHS CISO job on January 3, 2021, with the agency still reeling from the SolarWinds hack. Now a board member at Crytica Security, the former DHS CISO and Marine Corps CIO joins the show to trace a career that started on nuclear submarines at the Charleston Naval Shipyard and ran through the NMCI transition to NGEN. He explains why governance, not technology, was the real fix after SolarWinds, how a Unified Cybersecurity Maturity Model helped 13 component CISOs prioritize roughly a billion dollars in requests, and why he pushed NIST to wrap governance around the entire Cybersecurity Framework rather than bolt it on as another pillar.

Then the conversation turns to the attack surface nobody owns. Ken makes the case that operational technology has become the adversary's preferred target, from port cranes and water meters to LNG tankers and a grid that spent four hours rebalancing after a single Northern Virginia data center dropped its AI load. He explains why a 600MB EDR agent will never fit on an 8MB PLC, why IT and OT teams still don't talk, and what it takes to bring OT risk to the board.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Featured Guest

•  Kenneth Bible, Board Member, Crytica Security, and former CISO, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

•  Crytica Security 

•  Crytica announcement of Ken joining its board  

SolarWinds and Federal Cyber Governance

•  Executive Order 14028, Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity 

•  NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 

•  CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog

•  CISA Software Bill of Materials (SBOM)

•  CISA Binding Operational Directive 26-02

•  NIST SP 800-171

•  Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS)

OT and Critical Infrastructure Security

•  CISA advisory on Volt Typhoon targeting U.S. critical infrastructure  

•  NIST SP 800-82, Guide to Operational Technology Security

•  CISA Industrial Control Systems resources 

•  WaterISAC

•  National Council of ISACs

•  National Rural Water Association

•  DEF CON Franklin volunteers helping small water utilities

Recommended Reading

•  The High-Velocity Edge, by Steven Spear

•  Wiring the Winning Organization, by Gene Kim and Steven Spear

The Monday-Morning Takeaways (Ken Bible)

•  Take care of the people, because they take care of the mission

•  Build relationships with OT owners to expose blind spots, and help rather than dictate

•  Have the conversation up the chain, with the risk, the plan, and the result

Related Episodes

•  Episode 7  |  When IT meets OT, with Matthew Shelbetter of Armis

•  Episode 5  |  GRU router hacking, Iranian PLC attacks, and Project Glasswing

The Hosts and Show

•  Swish

•  GIST 360 Program

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - [email protected]

Sean Applegate - [email protected]

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

Six federal CIO roles, and every one of them secured by an intentional process, hard work, and homework. Brian and Sean sit down with Dr. Barry West, founder of West Wing Advisory Services and program chairman of the Government Business Executive Forum, who led IT at the National Weather Service, at FEMA through Hurricane Katrina, at the Department of Commerce, and at PBGC. Barry traces a path from Air Force weather observer to technical lead on FirstGov, the site that became USA.gov, and explains why today's CIO has to operate as a mission executive who turns business requirements into outcomes while managing risk.

The conversation gets practical fast. Barry lays out the six attributes every CIO needs, the reality check executives face when they move to industry and have to flip the switch, and why a GS-15 chasing SES should attack the job like a capture plan, with ECQs, metrics, GAO reports, and strategic plans studied cold. Sean shares mentorship stories from CBP and the FBI, and all three make the case for associations, a plan B and plan C, health, and financial planning at every stage of a career. Plus, the band that gets the lead out.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Featured Guest

•  Dr. Barry West, Founder and President, West Wing Advisory Services

•  West Wing Advisory Services

•  Government Business Executive Forum (GBEF)

•  Homeland Security and Defense Forum

Where Barry Served

•  National Weather Service  

•  Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)  

•  U.S. Department of Commerce

•  Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)

•  U.S. Census Bureau

•  National Technical Information Service (NTIS)

•  USA.gov, launched as FirstGov with Barry as technical lead

Associations and Communities

•  ACT-IAC, formerly FGIPC, which Barry led as president

•  AFFIRM, where Barry is a past president

•  AFCEA International and Young AFCEANs

•  AFCEA Bethesda Chapter

•  ATARC

•  Partnership for Public Service

Career Development and the Path to SES

•  OPM Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs)

Barry's Six Attributes of the Modern CIO

•  Strategist

•  Technologist, including cyber, AI, and LLMs

•  Builder of business alliances across the mission

•  Talent manager

•  Lifelong learner

•  Communicator who can brief in two minutes, not 40 pages

Also Mentioned

•  Get the Lead Out!

The Hosts and Show

•  Swish

•  GIST360 Program 

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - [email protected]

Sean Applegate - [email protected]

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

Steve Wallace spent 15 years at DISA, seven and a half of them as CTO, building some of the largest IT programs the Department has ever attempted. Now 130 days into his role as Public Sector CTO at F5, Steve joins Brian and Sean to share what those programs taught him. He walks through scaling DoD Enterprise Email to 1.8 million users before Office 365 existed, why a design only succeeds if operations can run it, and how a borrowed Lotus philosophy shaped his approach to systems engineering. Simpler systems are easier to troubleshoot, easier to operate, and far easier to defend because adversaries have fewer folds to hide in. That lesson drove the move from the Joint Regional Security Stack, with 20-plus vendors and a print job that traveled hundreds of miles to reach a printer down the hall, to Thunderdome, a zero trust architecture whose name came from the idea that two solutions enter and one leaves.

The conversation turns to cutting through AI hype the same way Steve once cut through blockchain and zero trust washing. He warns that the rush to deploy AI echoes the late-1990s scramble to install antivirus after the fact, and he flags API security as the screen door on the side of a house with a bolted front door. Steve and Sean dig into F5's acquisition of CalypsoAI, agentic red teaming that adapts its attacks in real time, why guardrails are never fire and forget, and how distillation puts fine-tuned agency knowledge at risk. Plus why the token party is over, the danger of cognitive surrender, and Steve's Monday-morning creed of delivering for people on the worst day of their lives, holding teams accountable, spending taxpayer dollars wisely, and never letting the adversary win on his watch.

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Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Featured Guest

•  Steve Wallace, Public Sector CTO, F5, and former CTO, Defense Information Systems Agency

•  F5 Public Sector 

DISA and DOD Programs

•  Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)  

•  DoD Zero Trust Strategy and Reference Architecture  

•  DISA THUNDERDOME

AI Security and Guardrails

•  F5 acquisition of CalypsoAI (AI guardrails and red teaming)  

•  CalypsoAI CASI leaderboard, a monthly security ranking of AI models  

•  OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications  

•  MITRE ATLAS, the adversarial threat landscape for AI systems  

•  Cognitive surrender and over-reliance on AI outputs

The Monday-Morning Takeaways (Steve Wallace)

•  Deliver for the people having the worst day of their lives

•  Equip the team, and hold the team accountable

•  Spend taxpayer dollars as efficiently as possible

•  Never let the adversary win on your watch

Also Mentioned

•  Ricky Bobby - If You Aint First, You're Last

•  James Dalton - Pain Don't Hurt

•  Simplify and then Add Lightness - Lotus Motorsports 

The Hosts and Show

•  Swish 

•  GIST360 Program 

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - [email protected]

Sean Applegate - [email protected]

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

In this season finale, Brian and Sean look back on a year that traded disruption for execution. Sean breaks down the wave of end-of-year infrastructure buys as CIOs finally funded the routers, switches, and Wi-Fi that leadership rarely sees but every AI agent, sensor, and data feed depends on. The conversation covers more legacy modernization in one year than in the past decade, OT security surging to the top of CISO agendas after real attacks on water and energy systems, and a reskilling wave that reached all the way to two-star generals writing their own agents. Brian and Sean also walk through the four seats shaping FY27 and a preview of Season Two's first guests. 

The Hosts and Show

•  Swish 

•  GIST360 Program 

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - [email protected]

Sean Applegate - [email protected]

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

The government is great at security governance — but that isn't the same as being secure. In Episode 18 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean sit down with Ian Kelly of Cloudflare, a self-described liberal arts major turned 15-year Google veteran turned public-sector technologist, to talk about closing the gap between the checkbox and the outcome. The conversation digs into why the exploit window has collapsed from weeks to roughly five minutes, the pivot from point-in-time compliance to continuous, risk-based security,  and AI governance before the horse leaves the barn. Sean and Ian also get into edge compute, the CBP conversational video bot built for the FIFA games, infrastructure as code for repeatable accreditation, and the emerging discipline of AEO — optimizing content so agents, not just humans, can use it. Plus, Cloudflare's FedRAMP High authorization and IL4 intentions, a wall of lava lamps as a cryptographic entropy source, and three Monday-morning takeaways, not to mention KatEye makes an appearance. 

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Featured Guest

•  Ian Kelly, Senior Director of Solutions Engineering, Cloudflare Public Sector

•  Cloudflare Public Sector

•  Cloudflare FedRAMP High authorization announcement

Cloudflare Capabilities Discussed

•  Cloudflare Edge Compute

•  Cloudflare AI Gateway (visibility, governance, cost control)

•  Cloudflare SASE / Zero Trust

•  Cloudflare's LavaRand entropy wall (true randomness)

Compliance, Standards & Frameworks

•  FIPS 140-3 validated cryptography

•  FIPS 203 and NIST post-quantum cryptography

Also Mentioned

•  KATSEYE  

•  Military Grade Metal Podcast

Related Content 

•  GIST360 Webinar: Rethinking Command and Control Resiliency at the Edge  

The Hosts & Show

•  Swish 

•  GIST 360

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - [email protected]

Sean Applegate - [email protected]

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

It's here. On August 20, CISA dropped the Logging Reference Architecture (LRA) a practitioner's guide that operationalizes OMB M-26-14 and the countdown just got real. In this episode of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean break down the aggressive timeline it sets: agencies have 90 days to inventory their environment and submit a plan in Cyberscope (the week before Thanksgiving), then about 30 more to hit Baseline 1 maturity (the week before Christmas). Surprisingly, or not, Sean's read is refreshingly positive, this guide was written by practitioners for practitioners, with concrete advice, outcome-focused questions to ask your teams, and clear thresholds: 70% of assets inventoried, 50% logging coverage, 50% actionable alerts, six-month retention.

The conversation digs into why IoT and OT are the hard part (segmented networks, third-party-managed devices, systems you can't actively scan), why the LRA deliberately doesn't mandate AI, and a practical path forward: assign a single LRA owner, reconcile your CMDB against your property book, deploy passive OT listening kits rather than scanning fragile systems, and use end-of-fiscal-year funds now to close gaps you can't fill over the holidays. The clock is ticking and agencies are going to have to build the airplane while they fly. 

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

The Core Documents

•  CISA Logging Reference Architecture (LRA), released August 20

•  OMB M-26-14 (the logging mandate the LRA operationalizes)

•  CyberScope (where agencies submit their plans)

The Baseline 1 Thresholds

•  Inventory visibility: 70% of assets captured in a centralized inventory

•  Collection coverage: 50% of inventoried assets logging

•  Collection operations: 50% of logs producing actionable alerts

•  Data retention: minimum six months (per M-26-14; the LRA guide notes a slightly different figure)

•  Timeline: plan ~Nov 18, Baseline 1 ~mid-December

Frameworks & Technical References

•  MITRE ATT&CK (adversary behavior models)

•  CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model

•  NIST SP 800-92 (log management guidance)

The Threat Backdrop

•  DOJ/FBI seizure of Chinese state-sponsored hacking infrastructure (August 26)

•  CISA advisory on edge-device compromise and lateral movement

•  Anthropic and OpenAI on the narrowing window to defend against AI cyber threats

From Swish / GIST 360

•  Swish LRA planning assessmen 

•  “When the Perimeter Disappears” breakfast briefing recap

Related Episodes

•  Episode 13: Fed Christmas in July? The OMB M-26-14 Holiday Rush Begins!

•  Episode 15: Billion Dollar Pilots and Boil Water Notices: Securing OT Environments

•  Episode 7: Iran Came for the Dams and We Got Lucky: Frontline Insights into the OT Fight

The Hosts & Show

•  Swish

•  GIST 360

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - [email protected]

Sean Applegate - [email protected]

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

Somewhere between 60% and 80% of federal AI projects have stalled out and the common denominator almost always traces back to the data. In Episode 16 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean sit down with Matt Lawson, Director of Solution Engineering for NetApp Federal, to unpack what it actually takes to build a data foundation that lets AI succeed. Matt's thesis is that projects keep stalling because teams can't get the right data, in the right place, at the right cost.

The conversation digs into data gravity (you can't move petabytes overnight, and you can't beat the speed of light), the take-the-data-to-the-model vs. bring-the-model-to-the-data debate (answer: you need both), and the copy-of-a-copy sprawl that quietly wrecks both budgets and data authority. Matt walks through ideas that change the math, and the guys close out on post-quantum cryptography and why “harvest now, decrypt later” makes it a today problem, not a tomorrow problem. Plus Matt on why he always chooses the blue pill.

Featured Guest

•  Matt Lawson, Director of Solution Engineering, NetApp Federal

•  NetApp Public Sector

The “Why AI Projects Fail” Data

•  The concept of data gravity

AI, RAG & Partners

•  Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) explained

•  Apache Kafka (real-time event streaming)

Post-Quantum Cryptography

•  NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards (FIPS 203/204/205)

•  OMB M-23-02 (migrating to post-quantum cryptography)

The Monday-Morning Playbook (Matt Lawson)

•  1. Catalog your data — know what data sets you actually have

•  2. Plan for a federated environment — data will live in many places, some not even yours

•  3. Design for security from day one — immutability, ransomware recovery, and PQC can't be bolted on later

Related Episodes

•  Episode 9: Quad Charts Be Damned: Data Meets the Mission

Upcoming Event

•  GIST 360 Breakfast Briefing with NetApp — Washington, DC, November 10

The Hosts & Show

•  Swish 

•  GIST 360 Program

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - [email protected]

Sean Applegate - [email protected]

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

“The only thing that isn't digital in the Department of War is the bayonet.” That line from DoW CISO Aaron Bishop set the tone for a standing-room panel Brian moderated in Washington, DC, with partners at Armis. In Episode 15 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean bring listeners the lessons learned from that breakfast briefing on securing the converged IT, IoT, and OT enterprise — featuring Bishop, Department of Transportation CISO Dr. Justin Ubert, and Armis’ Director of Civilian Strategy Matthew Shelbetter.

The conversation digs into the central insight all three panelists shared: the hardest part of convergence isn't the technology, it's the culture. IT security teams and OT operators speak different languages, hold different priorities (availability and safety first), and have to learn to meet in the middle — often starting with nothing more sophisticated than a room, a tabletop exercise, and a lot of pizza and Mountain Dew.

Brian and Sean also unpack Bishop's concept of mission-relevant terrain for cybersecurity, why attack path mapping and asset discovery are the foundation, how to pay for OT security when the funding is scattered (identity-for-agents riding on AI budgets, consensus-building at HHS, and Bishop's $1B OT security pilot anchored to a zero trust framework), and why the community — local utilities, mayors, volunteer responders, partners like Dominion Energy — has to be in the room before the house is on fire. Plus, three Monday-morning takeaways straight from the panelists.

The Panel & Blog

•  When the Perimeter Disappears Breakfast Briefing Recap Blog 

•  Aaron Bishop, CISO, Department of War

•  Dr. Justin Ubert, CISO, Department of Transportation

•  Matthew Shelbetter, Director of Civilian Strategy, Armis 

•  Armis Federal

Policy & Frameworks Referenced

•  OMB M-26-14 and the CISA Logging Reference Architecture : https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/

•  DoD OT Zero Trust Reference Architecture

•  CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model

•  GSA “Eliminate, Automate, and Optimize” playbook for AI/agents

•  NIST SP 800-82 — Guide to Operational Technology Security

The Threat Backdrop

•  CISA advisory on Iranian-affiliated actors targeting water and critical infrastructure

•  CISA Industrial Control Systems resources

•  EPA Water and Wastewater cybersecurity resources

The Three Monday-Morning Takeaways

•  Dr. Justin Ubert: Get the disparate teams — red, blue, OT, leadership — in the same room

•  Matthew Shelbetter: Talk to the operators; educate leadership and frontline managers, then get the right platforms and partners

•  Aaron Bishop: Start with asset discovery — know what you have, where it is, and who owns it

Related Episodes

•  Episode 14: A Pause, Not a Pass on CMMC

•  Episode 13: Fed Christmas in July? The OMB M-26-14 Holiday Rush Begins!

•  Episode 7: Iran Came for the Dams and We Got Lucky: Frontline Insights into the OT Fight

Upcoming Events

•  Upcoming GIST 360 webinars and fall breakfast briefings

The Hosts & Show

•  Swish

•  GIST 360

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - [email protected]

Sean Applegate - [email protected]

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

On July 13, the Department of War hit pause on one of the most consequential compliance regimes in the defense industrial base. In Episode 14 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean break down the suspension of CMMC Phase II — the third-party assessment requirement that was set to take effect November 10 — and what it actually means for the thousands of contractors caught in the middle. Sean's message is blunt: this is a pause, not a repeal. The requirement to protect controlled unclassified information isn't going anywhere, and the smart move is to keep marching toward NIST SP 800-171 compliance regardless of what the 60-day CMMC Reform Task Force recommends. The conversation digs into the real economics that triggered the review, the False Claims Act lawsuits already settling in the six-to-eight-figure range for contractors who attested to compliance they didn't have, why ISO 27001 is the closest on-ramp for commercial companies new to the space, and a clear Monday-morning playbook. Plus, CISA Director Nick Andersen's hacker name (hint: he's a Matrix fan).

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

The Core Story

• Department of War release: "Forging the Arsenal of Freedom: DoW Suspends CMMC Phase II Requirements" (July 13)
• Office of Industrial Base Growth version of the announcement
• Federal News Network coverage
• The CMMC Reform Task Force RFI (responses due 12:00 PM ET, Friday, August 14) — posted on SAM.gov 

Legal & Advisory Analysis

• Morgan Lewis — "Cybersecurity Obligations Remain"
• Crowell & Moring — DFARS obligations & contractor action steps
• Greenberg Traurig — the July 13 memoranda explained 

Standards & Frameworks Referenced

• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 (protecting Controlled Unclassified Information) 
• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3
• CMMC Program overview (DoD CIO)
• ISO/IEC 27001 (the commercial on-ramp Sean recommends)
• DFARS 252.204-7012 (safeguarding covered defense information)
• FIPS 140 validated encryption

Compliance & Assessment Concepts

• SPRS (Supplier Performance Risk System) — where self-assessments are posted
• DIBCAC (Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Assessment Center)
• C3PAO (CMMC Third-Party Assessment Organizations) via the Cyber AB

The False Claims Act Angle

• DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative
• The False Claims Act (DOJ overview)

The Hosts & Show

• Swish
• GIST 360

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - [email protected]

Sean Applegate - [email protected]

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

Level One by Christmas. Level Two by Valentine's Day. Level Three by Independence Day. That's the OMB M-26-14 logging mandate clock federal agencies are now racing against — and if you don't want to spend your holidays at the office, it's time to start planning now! In Episode 13 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean dig into OMB M-26-14 on the eve of Sean's fireside chat with CISA Director Nick Andersen. Sean breaks down what actually changed: the shift from long-term log hoarding (30 months of cold retention) to an outcomes-driven model focused on defending the cyberspace effectively, and the dramatic expansion of scope to include IoT and operational technology — the unmanaged, line-of-business-owned, often third-party-managed devices that CISOs have never had eyes on. The conversation walks through the mechanics: the Logging Reference Architecture (LRA) dropping mid-August, the 90-day plan requirement, and the three maturity levels with their rising inventory-and-logging thresholds (70/50, 80/80, 90/90). Brian and Sean unpack why asset inventory is the real "creeper" that will blindside teams, why OT discovery requires drop-in kits and passive network detection rather than active scanning that can break physical systems, why centralized logging matters for coordinated FSEB-wide defense, and how to think about "three-for-one" investments that solve this mandate and other capability gaps at once.
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RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

The Core Policy
- OMB M-26-14 (new logging mandate, issued May 22)
- OMB M-21-31 (the rescinded SolarWinds-era predecessor)
- OMB M-26-14 Signals a New Era for Cyber Visibility (BLOG)

Background: The SolarWinds / Sunburst Hack
- CISA on the SolarWinds supply chain compromise
- GAO review of federal M-21-31 log management adoption

The Maturity Milestones (per the memo)
- Level 1 (Basic) — ~120 days after LRA: 70% of assets inventoried, 50% logged centrally
- Level 2 (Intermediate) — ~Valentine's Day 2027: 80% inventoried, 80% logged
- Level 3 (Advanced) — ~320 days / Independence Day 2027: 90% inventoried, 90% logged

OT/IoT Discovery & Network Detection Solutions Referenced
- Zeek
- Corelight (commercial Zeek / "Sericana" reference
- Armis
- Dragos
- Nozomi Networks


SIEM, SOAR & SOC Modernization
- Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)
- CISA SIEM-as-a-service with Elastic


Related Episodes
- Episode 12: The Founding Father's Guide to Federal IT
- Episode 7: Iran Came for the US Dams and We Got Lucky: Frontline Insight from the OT Fight
- Episode 6: Cupcakes and OODA Loops: Inside(r)'s Insights Into the New Federal Cyber Playbook

Upcoming Events
- July 14 Breakfast Briefing at the National Press Club — "When the Perimeter Disappears: Securing the Converged Federal Enterprise Across IT, IoT, and OT":
- July 14 Mid-Year Federal IT Priority Setting Session with a fireside chat featuring CISA Director Nick Andersen

The Hosts & Show
- Swish Data
- GIST 360

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CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - [email protected]

Sean Applegate - [email protected]

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.