Suneel Cherukuri Named DC’s New Cybersecurity Officer

Suneel Cherukuri, a former engineer and a longtime contractor has been named as the new Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for D.C., government’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) announced in a press release on Wednesday.

“OCTO, since our inception 15-plus years ago, we’ve always had a mixture of contractors and government employees. Just because technology moves so fast and we have to try to keep up with it,” said Michael Rupert, OCTO Communications Director.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Cherukuri comes with 20 years of experience in “large enterprise network environments”, specializing in cyber security architecture, design, engineering and operations. On LinkedIn, he’s listed as a cyber security architect at OCTO.

Earlier, Cherukuri was a cybersecurity architect for over four years at Networking For Future (NFF), an IT firm in D.C. Before this stint, he worked as senior technical analyst at ANZ, Australia’s largest bank.

It was his previous work at D.C. which made him a contender for the new role, according to communications director of OCTO. From 2006 to 2010, Cherukuri worked in D.C. as senior network security engineer.

Cherukuri said in a statement that his promotion is “a true honor and a great responsibility.”

“Cybersecurity is one of the biggest challenges that is faced in today’s world of digital governance. We can never be 100 percent protected from all the cyber threats, the key is to be better prepared by investing wisely in technology and people and focus on reducing overall risk factors,” said the new Chief Information Security Officer.

Cherukuri will be in charge of overall security in D.C. government, overseeing cybersecurity and coordinating protection of information resources from internal and external threats.  The security architecture of OCTO and engineering division will also be helmed by him.

Interim Chief Technology Officer Barney Krucoff in a statement said that Cherukuri’s appointment is a “well-deserved promotion.”

“Suneel provided critical expertise as OCTO focused on expanding and strengthening our cybersecurity efforts over the past decade,” said Krucoff.