Top cybersecurity professionals from across the Federal government and industry gathered on Thursday evening at Morton’s in Washington, D.C., to honor the 2025 Cyber Defenders Award winners.
Nominated by their peers across the Federal government and industry, this year’s class of Cyber Defenders is made up of 42 tech security stalwarts that are making crucial contributions to defend the tech infrastructure that is foundational to modern government and society, and engineering the security breakthroughs that will keep us all ahead of cyber adversaries.
“This is the fourth year that MeriTalk has recognized those who are driving innovation and resilience in the cyber community, both inside agencies and in the private sector companies that support the ecosystem,” said Caroline Boyd, principal of government programs for MeriTalk, at the awards ceremony held as part of MeriTalk’s Tech Tonic.
“We know it takes a lot of hard work to get this award, and we are grateful for everyone’s contributions,” Boyd said.
Check out the complete list of winners. Here’s what some of them had to tell us last night after receiving their awards:
“It’s a validation of sorts for the hard work that all Federal workers do. I think a lot of us pour our heart into our mission, and so it’s rare to get recognized for that effort, so this feels really good,” said Aastha Verma, the chief of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Division.
“I want to thank my agency for the work that they’re doing on behalf of the country to advance our mission,” Verma added.
“I feel very fortunate to have gotten this award,” said Scott Braus, director of cybersecurity operations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “A lot of it has to do with some of the cross-agency work that we’ve done. We actually gave some presentations on some specific technology implementations, and when we demonstrated how we’re using them in an innovative manner to these other agencies, we got a whole bunch of inquiries. You know, ‘how’d you do that?’”
“Being able to take a product that a lot of people have and use it in a new and innovative way really did help, not only for our organization, but it helped a lot of other organizations move up,” Braus said.
“I appreciate this recognition of my ability to get things done within the Department of Defense and some really critical things as far as training, which I love,” said David McKeown, special assistant for cybersecurity innovation in the Office of the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer.
“Being in the Federal government and trying to make things happen there isn’t always easy,” he said. “You’ve got to overcome a lot of obstacles. There are bureaucracies, of course, that you have to deal with, but you’ve got to work through it, and you’ve got to figure out how to get things done.”
McKeown was quick to share credit with several senior members of the CIO office including Randy Resnick, the office’s chief zero trust officer, Stacy Bostjanick, the office’s director of defense industrial base cybersecurity, and Sue Devaez, who leads cryptographic modernization efforts as deputy CIO for information technology and digital modernization.
“On my team, they’re kind of fire and forget – they know what they’re doing,” McKeown said.
“Winning an award is an honor, especially with MeriTalk and the work that we’ve done and the work that has been done – it’s always good to get recognized outside of your department for the work that you do in the space,” said Willie Crenshaw, Jr., the CEO at CyberPrime LLC and former director for Federal Information Security Modernization Act and High Value Asset at the Department of Transportation.
“I’ve been in it for a while, but I’d like to shout out really, a lot of people,” Crenshaw added. “My current group at DoT, [they’re] really supportive – like Jack Albright, Kelvin Taylor, and those guys – it’s just been wonderful, you know, I’ve had good support.”
“Industry has a significant mission, whether it’s a small business or a large business, to support the government and some really critical missions,” said Todd Helfrich, vice president of Federal at Censys. “From a cyber perspective, there’s no doubt the adversary is coming at us every direction they can. Understanding what our critical assets are that are connected to the internet is critically important, whether it’s critical infrastructure, IoT, or cloud. And there are some great industry peers here today that received awards. I myself, I give the gratitude to my team, our customers, and the relationship that collectively we have to beat the bad guys.”
“It feels great to be recognized and reinforces the feeling of pride in supporting and securing our nation,” said Drew Schnabel, vice president, U.S. Government Solutions, at Zscaler. He also shouted out Hansang Bae, Zscaler’s public sector chief technologist, who also joined the 2025 class of Cyber Defenders. “He’s fantastic … and we are all learning from him,” Schnabel said.
“It’s great to get some external recognition on what Axonius Federal is doing right,” said Tom Kennedy, vice president and general manager at Axonius Federal Systems. He shared the credit with Emily Burdeshaw, the company’s Director of Federal Marketing, and the Axonius marketing team who Kennedy said are “fantastic” on getting the company out into the market.
“It’s an honor to be recognized, it feels great,” said Steve Hoffman, president at Fortinet Federal. “This is a collaborative effort,” he emphasized, adding, “it’s not just a recognition of Fortinet Federal, it’s our partners that we go to market with and our customers that are trying to meet their mission requirements.”