ACF Taps New CISO From Education Department

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) appointed Hanan Abu Lebdeh as CISO this week. She announced the move Monday on LinkedIn.

Abu Lebdeh spent a decade at the Education Department mostly recently as education information system security branch chief before moving to ACF, a subagency of the Department of Health and Human Services.

In the new role,  Abu Lebdeh will be tasked with reducing IT security risks for the 1,200 employees of the agency, as well as the hundreds of contractors working with the agency.

“In this role, Hanan will lead ACF’s cybersecurity and privacy program while supporting the broader ACF mission,” CTO Kevin Duvall said in a statement to GovCIO Media & Research. “She will focus on zero trust to the next chapter of ACF’s cybersecurity innovation and delivery journey.”

During the transition into the role, Anita Alford will serve as a senior advisor for the cybersecurity and privacy team until the end of June.

“We are deeply grateful to Anita Alford, who has provided leadership to cybersecurity at ACF for over six years. She will be retiring from federal and defense service after 45 years of service across Navy, Marine Corps, NASA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in active duty, civilian, and contract roles,” Duvall said. “She built ACF’s cybersecurity function from the ground up to 60-plus personnel and achieved cybersecurity compliance and resilience for over 100 systems along the way.”