The (ISC)² Government Professional Award recognizes government cybersecurity leaders whose commitment to excellence has helped to improve government information security and advance an in-demand workforce. The recognition is given to individuals whose initiatives have improved the areas of technology, process/policy or workforce and has led to significant developments in the security posture of a department, agency or entire government.

We had a chance to learn more about the 2021 (ISC)² Government Professional Award honorees and their contributions to a safer and more secure cyber world.

Asia-Pacific Region (ISC)² Government Professional Award Honoree

Group Captain Amorn Chomchoey, CISSP is Acting Deputy Secretary General for the National Cyber Security Agency of Thailand. He inspires and leads RTAF personnel from all units of the Air Force. He demonstrated the need to build cyber warrior teams to fight and fend off hackers from attacking the Royal Thai Air Force network and cyberspace.

Amorn’s leadership skills were truly shown when a small competition grew into the Royal Thai Air Force annual main event. Since its inception, other services and industries were intrigued and visit the RTAF to learn more about the event.

EMEA Region (ISC)² Government Professional Award Honoree

Angella Tugume, CISSP is a cybersecurity expert with more than ten years of experience. While working as a Risk Analyst at the National Information Technology Authority – Uganda (NITA-U), Angella provided leadership for the implementation of the National Information Security Framework across 20 government agencies, which involved conducting individual assessments, developing customized roadmaps for each to guide their operational implementations to achieve compliance, and organizing cybersecurity risk training sessions. Angella is also the current president of the (ISC)² Uganda Chapter.

When asked what the award means to her, she responded that it highlights the work being done by the government of Uganda in putting cybersecurity at the forefront of protecting digital infrastructure and promoting digitization of government services.

She says that the biggest challenges in cybersecurity right now are the highly strategic cybercrime organizations and a lack of skilled cybersecurity professionals to combat it.

North America Region (ISC)² Government Professional Award Honoree

Lieutenant Colonel Erica Mitchell, CISSP is the Army User Engagement Representative for the Hosting and Computer Center for the Defense Information Systems Agency, which focuses on innovative solutions for mission owners and simplifying cloud procurement.

She graduated from West Point with a B.S. in American Legal Systems (2001), was commissioned as a Signal Corps officer, and later transitioned to an Information Systems Management Officer (FA26B). She attended Syracuse University, where she earned an M.S. in Information Systems Management (2010), C.A.S. in Information Security Management (2010), and Ph.D. in Information Science and Technology (2020).

Erica enjoys her work in cybersecurity because she has a passion for it. She says that our biggest challenge is user accountability and basic cyber hygiene standards.

“Basic cyber hygiene is everyone’s responsibility,” she says. “However, often cybersecurity professionals are expected to try to secure things around the user without expecting that user to be responsible for good security practices. Cyber hygiene for computer users should be as ubiquitous as putting on a seatbelt. As we move to more people working from home, we are at an optimal point in time to really focus on home user security and education.”

We thank each of these Government Professional Award honorees for their service and were proud to celebrate all the (ISC)² Global Achievement Award recipients throughout (ISC)² Security Congress .