Matthew A. Shabat

Matt is a cybersecurity and risk management professional with 20 years of experience in the public and private sectors. He holds a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.A. in Security Policy Studies from George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He completed the Senior Executive Fellows Program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University with a focus on cybersecurity governance, and he is an active participant in the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. A student of complexity theory, he has applied methodologies associated with the study of complex adaptive systems to network intrusion pattern recognition and to malware detection. Prior to joining NAIS, Matt served as the U.S. Strategy Manager for a cybersecurity software company where, among other duties, he provided guidance on cyber threat information sharing, designed a forensics workbench around the company’s software, and provided other technical and strategic support. He served for nearly 10 years in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s former Office of Cybersecurity & Communications, most recently as a cybersecurity strategist and as the Director of Performance Management, and previously as the National Cyber Security Division’s chief of staff. While at DHS, Matt led DHS and interagency implementation of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, supported the maturation of cyber risk management practices and the cyber insurance marketplace, oversaw the development of an operationally-relevant approach to measuring the costs of cybersecurity, contributed performance goals to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, led strategic planning, and developed program performance metrics. Before DHS, Matt was a Research Fellow with the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. He began his career at Mayer Brown LLP in Chicago, practicing securities, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate law. While no longer a practicing attorney, Matt remains committed to providing senior leadership at NAIS and its clients with technical advice in a manner that is relevant to their business or mission functions.