NASCIO honors Virginia cyber chief with leadership award
The National Association of State Chief Information Officers this week honored Michael Watson, Virginia’s chief information security officer, with the Thomas M. Jarrett State Cybersecurity Leadership Award.
Watson, who has served as Virginia’s CISO since 2012, is credited with implementing a zero-trust strategy, improving access management and advancing cybersecurity training for state workers. Watson’s 12-year tenure is noteworthy in light of a recent NASCIO report finding that state CISOs are now only serving only 23 months on average.
In 2019, Watson led Virginia in adopting a “whole-of-state” approach to cybersecurity, an increasingly common cybersecurity strategy that enables the state government to provide cybersecurity services and resources to local governments.
“We’ve generally understood where our threats are,” Virginia Chief Information Security Officer Michael Watson said at a Washington-area event in 2019 while describing the state’s whole-of-state cyber strategy. “Part of the challenge is to be agile and adaptable to the business. Now we’re trying to figure out how we integrate and make cybersecurity part of our general services across the board.”
According to NASCIO’s announcement, Watson plans to use federal cybersecurity grants to offer more cybersecurity training and buy new security technologies to protect the state.
NASCIO’s cybersecurity award is named for Tom Jarrett, a past president of the association, to honor state CISOs for accomplishments in their field. Past CISO recipients include Vitaliy Panych of California and Nancy Rainosek of Texas, who recently announced she will retire at the end of the year.
