Department of Defense Gets its First Cybersecurity Policy Chief

Congress mandated a new and potentially critical Department of Defense position last year, “following years of frustration over the Pentagon’s lack of a senior official responsible for cyber policies,” according to an article by defense reporter Anastasia Obis in the online Federal News Network. 

Obis writes that Michael Sulmeyer, now “the first-ever Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy,” was appointed to fill the position on August 6. 

Sulmeyer’s official title is Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy and Principal Cyber Advisor to the Secretary of Defense. He previously served in several senior roles, including principal cyber advisor of the U.S. Army, special assistant to the President, and National Security Council senior director of cyber policy.

In comments at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit conference, Sulmeyer said he would focus on better metrics in the coming months. He recalled that in 2015 Congress created the Principal Cyber Advisor staff, which works with the U.S. Cyber Command. He said his job in the Army was to be its principal cyber advisor (PCA).

“Now,” he says, “as the principal cyber advisor DoD-wide, it’s a big opportunity to really help the service PCAs get a broader picture about where the department’s going, where Cyber Command is going, and to use that to then inform how their service cyber components are evolving, how service related training and organizing and equipping can evolve so that we have relatively common standards across the department as a whole.”

There is some suggestion that Sulmeyer is eyeing potential direct benefits from his office to the private sector, with his acknowledgment that he would be considering “our return on the nation’s investment, not just [Department of Defense], but the cyber community, more broadly, private and public sector.”