DIR Statewide Resilience and Incident Response Manager Wins Rising Star Award

August 12, 2021
DIR News
Jonathan King, Statewide Resilience and Incident Response Manager at DIR, received the Rising Star Award from the Texas Association State Systems for Computing and Communications (TASSCC).

​The TASSCC Rising Star Award recognizes emerging government technology leaders who have less than 10 years of IT experience and not in a director or senior-level position. The award is given to individuals who haves a track record that reflects a strong potential for continued advancement in the technology arena.

King has been instrumental in moving the state's cybersecurity incident response program forward.  Jonathan served for 9 ½ years at the Texas Division of Emergency Management, and was Deputy Plans Coordinator for his last 2-3 years with TDEM. King has served as the Statewide Cyber Resilience & Response Manager for DIR for 1 ½ years.

King coordinated the state's response to both the Solarwinds and Microsoft Exchange cybersecurity issues. King has also assisted on several major ransomware incidents at both the state and local level, whether as the DIR lead or coordinating with local governments to get the support they need.  He has revised the state incident response red book to ensure that other agencies have good response plans in place. 

King also develops cybersecurity tabletop exercises on a monthly basis to share with other agencies so their staffs are prepared when a cyber attack occurs.  He recorded a cybersecurity training session on DIR's Youtube site, which as been viewed over 40,000 times as of April 1, 2021.

"Jonathan is a highly motivated professional who works day and night to ensure that the state is protected from cyber adversaries," said Nancy Rainosek, Texas Chief Information Security Officer. "He is that person you call when you need results and you need them correct and timely.  You can count on him to represent the agency with integrity and professionalism."

The award was presented at the 2021 TASSCC Annual Conference in Galveston on August 10, 2021.

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