John Riggi, having spent nearly 30 years as a highly decorated veteran of the FBI, serves as the first national advisor for cybersecurity and risk for the American Hospital Association and their 5000+ member hospitals and health systems. John leverages his distinctive experience at the FBI and CIA in the investigation and disruption of cyber, criminal and national security threats to assist on national cyber policy and advocacy issues and provide uniquely informed and trusted advisory services to the nations’ hospital and health system leaders. John’s unique national perspective is further informed by his direct role in assisting ransomware victim hospitals and health systems.
John represented the nation’s hospitals in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on cyber threats to hospitals in Dec. 2020. This assisted in the passage of PL 116-321, providing regulatory relief for HIPAA covered victims of cyber attacks. In 2021, John’s prominent advocacy encouraged the government to raise the investigative priority level of ransomware attacks to equal that of terrorist attacks.
John also served as the nation’s hospital representative to the FCC hospital robocall protection group John initiated and co-led a national healthcare sector task group to develop resources to assist the field in managing cyber risk as an enterprise risk issue. John launched a national campaign with the AHA and government agencies to help members protect medical research against foreign threats.
In various leadership roles at the FBI, John served as a representative to the White House Cyber Response Group, a senior representative to the CIA and was the national operations manager for terrorist financing investigations. John also led counterintelligence field surveillance programs in Washington DC and financial crimes and terrorist financing task force squads in New York City. John ultimately rose to the ranks of the Senior Executive Service to lead the FBI Cyber national private sector outreach and partnership program. John held a national strategic role in the investigation of the largest cyber-attacks targeting healthcare and other sectors.
He also served on the NY FBI SWAT Team for eight years. John is the recipient of the FBI Director’s Award for Special Achievement in Counterterrorism and the CIA’s George H.W. Bush Award for Excellence in Counterterrorism, the CIAs highest award in this category. John presents extensively on cybersecurity and risk topics and is frequently interviewed by the media.
More about the American Hospital Association
The American Hospital Association (AHA) is the national organization that represents and serves all types of hospitals, health care networks, and their patients and communities. Nearly 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks, other providers of care and 43,000 individual members come together to form the AHA.
Through our representation and advocacy activities, AHA ensures that members’ perspectives and needs are heard and addressed in national health policy development, legislative and regulatory debates, and judicial matters. Our advocacy efforts include the legislative and executive branches and include the legislative and regulatory arenas.
Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends.