Lauryn Williams – The State of U.S. Cybersecurity Strategy & Policy

The State of U.S. Cybersecurity Strategy & Policy

Lauryn Williams
Deputy director and senior fellow in the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

About the Topic
With the growing innovation and deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the United States faces an increasingly complex cybersecurity environment as government, businesses and individuals contend with cyber threats from adversaries, criminal organizations, and independent hackers. In response, policy development in the U.S. states is focused on strengthening national resilience, improving information sharing between government and the private sector, protecting critical infrastructure, adopting stronger security standards and zero-trust security architectures. The discussion will consider the broader policy questions facing decision-makers: how to balance innovation and security, how to assign responsibility across government and industry, and how the United States should respond to adversaries operating in cyberspace.

About the Speaker

Ms. Lauryn Williams is the deputy director and senior fellow in the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where her work focuses on cybersecurity, defense technology, space systems, and national security policy. Before joining CSIS, she served as chief of staff to the assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, where she helped lead the release of the National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan. She served as director for strategy in the White House Office of the National Cyber Director from 2022-2024, leading work on space system cybersecurity which resulted in the first-ever minimum cybersecurity requirements for federal space systems. Ms. Williams also worked in the Pentagon’s space policy office; the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration; and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She earned her BA in political science from Stanford University and her MA in public and international affairs from Princeton University.