{"id":219545,"date":"2026-03-03T16:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/03\/new-york-state-creates-new-top-job-for-cybersecurity\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T16:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:50:12","slug":"new-york-state-creates-new-top-job-for-cybersecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/03\/new-york-state-creates-new-top-job-for-cybersecurity\/","title":{"rendered":"New York State Creates New Top Job for Cybersecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/workforce\/new-york-state-creates-new-top-job-for-cybersecurity\">New York State Creates New Top Job for Cybersecurity<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/workforce\/new-york-state-creates-new-top-job-for-cybersecurity\">https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/workforce\/new-york-state-creates-new-top-job-for-cybersecurity<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-03-03 16:37:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.govtech.com\">www.govtech.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                                    New York state has its first ever director of security and intelligence, or DSI.<\/p>\n<p>Colin Ahern takes over that job after serving as the state\u2019s chief cyber officer since 2022. According to a statement, he will \u201cprovide strategic direction and further unify the state\u2019s security assets on national security and intelligence matters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The DSI will coordinate the state\u2019s cyber defenses in response to \u201cglobal risks,\u201d as well as boosting relevant technology.<\/p>\n<p><span data-bsp-pv=\"4f8e492c-6f2f-390e-bc61-f176d3a37ab9\"\/><span data-bsp-pv=\"0000019c-b4f6-da9a-ab9e-fef7be1f0000\"\/><br \/>Though the statement made no mention of the new Iran conflict, his appointment comes as concerns rise that the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign could lead to cyber retaliation from Iran.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKeeping New Yorkers safe is my top priority, and the threats we face are more complex and interconnected than ever before, which is why we need to be aggressive, innovative and adaptive in the way we combat new threats and adversaries,\u201d Gov. Kathy Hochul said in the statement.<\/p>\n<p>Ahern reports to Director of State Operations Jackie Bray.<\/p>\n<p>The statement says that Ahern\u2019s job will involve a focus on \u201cwhole-of-state\u201d responses to threats, reflecting a larger trend in the government technology world of cybersecurity coordination among various agencies. Other areas of responsibility include drones \u201cand other technologies crucial to national security.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ahern has two decades of experience in security and intelligence, including service as a U.S. Army officer with two tours in Afghanistan, senior cybersecurity engineer for First Data, and deputy and acting chief information security officer for New York City. He also held leadership roles for NYC Cyber Command.<\/p>\n<p>Michaela Lee takes over as acting chief cyber officer until a permanent replacement comes aboard.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/workforce\/new-york-state-creates-new-top-job-for-cybersecurity\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York State Creates New Top Job for Cybersecurity https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/workforce\/new-york-state-creates-new-top-job-for-cybersecurity Publish Date: 2026-03-03 16:37:00 Source&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219546,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/erepublic.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/2ce5e81\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/940x457+0+85\/resize\/1440x700!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ferepublic-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2F10%2Fb9%2F0b28b865f6f8b1df1489ca6c7217%2Fshutterstock-399288955.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-219545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219545"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219547,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219545\/revisions\/219547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}