Christopher Cockburn

Cybersecurity Advisor, Region 7 (IA, KS, MO & NE) at CISA

Mr. Cockburn serves as a Cybersecurity Advisor for Region 7 (IA, KS, MO and NE) for the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Integrated Operations Division. Based in Saint Louis, MO he supports the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) mission of strengthening the security and resilience of the nation’s critical infrastructure. 

His programs coordinate cyber preparedness, risk mitigation and incident response. He provides Cybersecurity resource briefings, Cybersecurity assessments, and Incident Response planning to the nation’s sixteen critical infrastructure sectors and state, local, tribal, and territorial government entities. 

Prior to joining CISA Mr. Cockburn was a Department of Defense (DoD) civilian with the United States Air Force (USAF) as the Defensive Cyber Operations Planner for a Cyber Protection Team. He led the planning of 4 intel driven threat hunting operations and 2 adversarial tactics emulation missions on DoD networks. As an additional duty, Mr. Cockburn also served as the Senior Civilian, advising the Commander on matters pertaining to the squadron’s 20 civilian members, and led hiring efforts for 12 open positions.     

In 2019 Mr. Cockburn retired from USAF after 22 years of active duty service. While in uniform he acquired a wide breadth of experience from positions that included Desktop Support Technician, Certified Cisco Academy Instructor, Afghanistan liaison officer for offensive cyber operations, and two-time Cyberspace Operations Squadron Superintendent. In his time on active duty, Mr. Cockburn led a team to revamp enterprise vulnerability management processes to focus remediation efforts on the most critical vulnerabilities to USAF networks.  Additionally, he was the sole USAF cyber operations planner deployed to Afghanistan to liaison with national security partners and integrate actions through cyberspace in support of special operation missions. Finally, he provided significant contributions to the processes and procedures for training and certifying operators for USAF cyber weapon systems used for offensive and defensive operations.