McAfee on Monday announced that Dr. Phyllis Schneck, the company’s chief technology officer for public sector, has been appointed to the position of Deputy Undersecretary for Cyber Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Schneck has been vice president and CTO for public sector at McAfee since 2009, advising the company’s public sector business and government affairs team.
The Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity post was created in 2011 to act as the Department’s chief cybersecurity policy official, in recognition of the growing importance of cybersecurity to DHS’ mission.
“McAfee takes great pride in the strong partnership we have with the U.S. government, and governments around the world,” said Michael DeCesare, president of McAfee. “Phyllis has long been a trusted and valued member of the McAfee team who has helped build these partnerships. We congratulate her on her appointment to the Department of Homeland Security, and we know she will do an outstanding job as Deputy Undersecretary for Cyber Security.”
In addition to her role a the Intel subsidiary, Schneck also serves as board chair of the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance, in leadership roles on the CSIS Commission to Advise the 44th President on Cyber Security and as the vice chair of NIST’s Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board. She was also named one of Information Security Magazine’s Top 25 Women Leaders in Information Security. For eight years she was national board chair of the FBI’s InfraGard program, McAfee said.
Schneck holds three patents in high-performance and adaptive information security, has six research publications and earned a Ph.D. in computer science from Georgia Tech.