National intelligence expert and corporate attorney Bryan Cunningham has been hired to lead the new Cybersecurity Policy and Research Institute at the University of California-Irvine.
He quietly took the executive director position in August and told the Business Journal last week that the institute is developing an advisory board before it lays out a mission and structure.
UCI, which has championed an interdisciplinary approach to fighting one of the country’s most pressing challenges, hadn’t publicly announced the hire at press time.
The institute is one of the latest developments on the cybersecurity front in OC, which has developed a hub in one of the most closely watched technology sectors as major breaches continued to wreak havoc on the corporate and political landscapes leading up to the presidential election.
Cunningham was deputy legal adviser to former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and spent six years in the Bill Clinton administration as a senior CIA officer and federal prosecutor.Â
He drafted significant parts of the Homeland Security Act and related legislation, helping to shepherd them through Congress. He also was a principal contributor to the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, worked closely with the 9/11 Commission, and has provided legal advice to presidents, national security advisers, the National Security Council, and other senior government officials on intelligence, terrorism, cybersecurity and related issues.
The Business Journal in May reported that UCI was in the early stages of establishing a cybersecurity research institute that would be the first of its kind in the state with a national scope and profile.
