The National
Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Ron Ross has received the
2010 Federal 100 Award. Presented by Federal Computer Week,
the award honors the top professionals in the federal information
technology community. This is the third time he has been named to the
list.
A select panel of government and industry
leaders chooses the Federal 100 winners from nominations from the public
and private sector.
Ross is a senior computer scientist and
information security researcher at NIST. He manages the Federal
Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Implementation Project,
which includes the development of key security standards and guidelines
for the federal government and support contractors. These standards and
guidelines have been widely adopted nationally and internationally. Ross
is also the principal architect of the NIST Risk Management Framework,
which provides a disciplined and structured methodology for integrating
the suite of security standards and guidelines into a comprehensive,
risk-based, enterprise-wide information security program. One of the
most significant characteristics of the framework is that it helps
organizations to adopt continuous monitoring practices, which allow
organizations to dynamically assess their current security posture and
react quickly and effectively against new threats and vulnerabilities.
The framework has fundamentally changed how agencies protect their
information and information systems.
In addition to these responsibilities, Ross
leads the Joint Task Force Transformation Initiative Working Group, a
joint partnership with NIST, the Department of Defense, and the
Intelligence Community to develop a unified information security
framework for the federal government and its support contractors.
“Ross has provided extraordinary research and
technical leadership in the field of information security and the
unification of information security concept and practices in the federal
government,” says Matthew Scholl, manager of NIST’s Security Management
and Assurance Group.
For more information on NIST Agency Security
Standards and Guidelines, see http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SMA/fisma/index.html;
for a listing of other Federal 100 winners, see http://fcw.com/pages/2010-federal-100-list.aspx.
