Meeting Zero Trust Goals in Government

Sean Connelly serves as the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) Program Manager at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In this role, he leads the TIC Program Management Office, which is responsible for leading the Office of Management and Budget’s TIC initiative within CISA. The TIC initiative is the federal government’s strategy to securely protect government networks that connect to the Internet and cloud providers. CISA’s TIC Program Office works with a wide-spectrum of partners across government and industry and leads the way at enhancing network security across the federal enterprise horizon.

Mr. Connelly joined DHS in 2013 and has served in a variety of roles, including the development of TIC 1, 2 and 3, along with the deployment of CISA’s sensor capabilities (operationally known as EINSTEIN 3A), and was part of the initial architectural team that stood-up the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program. Additionally, Mr. Connelly was a lead author on the ‘IT Modernization Report to the President’ in 2017, as well as a co-author of NIST’s Special Publicization towards ‘Zero Trust Architectures’ in 2019.

Prior to joining the federal civilian service, Mr. Connelly worked as a consultant to the Department of State, where he led architectural initiatives within the department, including the adoption of TIC 1 and TIC 2, as well as the design of the State Department’s next-generation telecommunications platform, providing IT for a global workforce. Overall, Mr. Connelly has over 15 years of experience in the federal domain, and over 20 years of experience in the IT and cybersecurity domain.

Mr. Connelly earned a MS in Information Technology Management from George Washington University, and holds two Cisco Certified Information Expert (CCIE) certifications. Mr. Connelly holds the first CCIE in Routing, and a second CCIE in Security.

Mr. Randy Resnick serves as the Director of the newly established Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office within DoD CIO/CS. Mr. Resnick joins us from the National Security Agency (NSA) with over 34 years of experience in offense and defense cybersecurity. In his most recent assignment, Mr. Resnick served as NSA’s Zero Trust Strategic Lead. In that role, Mr. Resnick successfully led and executed numerous ZT activities at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels and also provided NSA leadership during the successful ZT POM 23-27 Issue Paper process. His leadership and technical direction led to the development of the first DoD Zero Trust Reference Architecture, the first NSS Zero Trust Reference Architecture, DoD’s ZT maturity model, DoD’s initial strategy for Zero Trust and the construction of two Zero Trust Innovation testbed labs in collaboration with DISA and USCC. Prior to serving as NSA’s Zero Trust Strategic Lead, Mr. Resnick held positions as their Cybersecurity Innovations Director for the NSA Cybersecurity Directorate, served as Chief of NSA’s Red Team, and served as the Deputy Mission Manager for NC2/NC3/NLCC missions.

As the Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office Director, Mr. Resnick’s focus will be to provide strategic guidance, direct alignment of DoD ZT efforts, and prioritize resources to accelerate Zero Trust adoption across the DoD Enterprise while strengthening coordination and collaboration with key partners and stakeholders across the Department, the IC, Interagency, and Industry.

A native New Yorker, Mr. Resnick holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Fairleigh Dickenson University and a Master’s Degree in Engineering Management from George Washington University. Mr. Resnick has been married for 25 years and has two daughters, ages 22 and 20, who simultaneously adore him as well as drive him crazy.