5 Questions with...Keith Frederick

Keith was named CISO of the Year – Enterprise in 2024 by the Houston ORBIE Awards. With over 30 years of experience as a CISO in four different companies (Private & Public, Commercial, DoD, & Federal), he currently serves as Viasat’s Enterprise CISO. He is a retired U.S. Air Force Officer who spent the bulk of his career attached to the intelligence community specializing in cybersecurity. Keith founded two cyber companies, has authored two books on cybersecurity and built a training site, the Cyber Technology Institute (CTI). Lastly, he teaches cyber classes as an adjunct professor at Texas A&M University.?

What are your passions??

My professional passion is ultimately to help the common person survive the onslaught of this (digital) war. State actors/countries and other cyber-crime organizations are attacking countries, companies and individuals.? But no home sovereignty is really addressing the impact on the average citizen. When it is costing "ma and pa” billions of dollars, it's not right. None of the governments are really helping the most helpless (their citizens). My passion is to rectify this.??

My personal passion is my family. During my career, I was on the road a lot and I am eternally grateful to my wife for raising our kids. Now, I have more time for my family which is a joy.?

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How did you get started in cybersecurity??

During military basic training I ended up volunteering for a program focused on certain new technologies. This included the NSA (crypto), electromagnetics, and computer security. I ultimately developed a security test lab for the NSA. I assessed and evaluated products for the government creating an "approved product list". My last position in the military was at Scott Air Force base's testing ground for the Department of Defense’s security products. After I retired from the miliary, I started my first cybersecurity business to continue helping at the Scott Air Force Base and then other projects.?

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What do you see as the risks and opportunities related to cybersecurity??

The biggest problem is the lack of education of the general populous. In business, it is the lack of education of the C-Suite when making purchasing decisions as it relates to security. There is an overwhelming naiveté that purchases -- for example networks and assets are secure. The truth is they are not even if vendors say they are. The false mentality people have with digital security is "it's good enough" and "I'm not personally being attacked". And the reason for this blissful ignorance is that often times organizations' IT departments are hiding how many attacks there actually are.?

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What are Invisinet's opportunities???

Invisinet can perform validation and assurance (serving as a filter) for everything.? Invisinet can be plugged into any security solution and add that proactive first ("is this you?") identity validation and then make it transparent. This innovation can help a wide range of state and local governments, utilities, critical infrastructure, etc. The possibilities and opportunities are wide open.?

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Why did you join the Advisory Board at Invisinet??

I believe Invisinet has a way to ultimately help the everyday citizen who is getting hurt by cybercrimes. This is another way to channel my own passion to make things right. I'm here to help with this challenge.?