ISSA Sacramento Valley Chapter Meeting – 2/20/2026 – Future State Cybersecurity Program

Speaker: Paul Grabow, Principal Advisor, Cybersecurity Grant Advisors LLC

Topic: Towards a Future State Cybersecurity Program (Public Sector Edition)

Synopsis: Many public sector programs are still fighting today’s attacks with yesterday’s operating models. Paul Grabow will outline a near‑term, achievable future‑state model for public sector cybersecurity that fully leverages NLP, ML, generative AI, and semi‑autonomous agents, backed by strong governance and leadership. He’ll connect emerging AI‑driven tools with frameworks like NIST NICE, CSF, and ISO 27001, and highlight the leadership, structural, and vendor‑risk changes needed to make it real.

Public sector CISOs, program managers, and consultants will leave with a notional Future State Program and potential approaches to start modernizing their programs before the next budget and threat cycle hits. They will also be invited to work collaboratively to refine the Future State Program concept.

Speaker Bio: Paul is a principal cybersecurity professional with a decades long career evaluating, defining, advocating, and driving policies, programs, processes, strategies, and technologies to advance cybersecurity, strengthen the resiliency of computing ecosystems, increase awareness of threats, and manage risk factors across environments.

His background includes information security leadership positions for the US Senate, Office of the Sergeant At Arms and staff positions with the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System. Additionally, along with work at the Judicial Council of California and contract for a State of California startup agency, he may be the first (and at this point in time only) person in this field who has worked in all three branches of government! He also helped brainstorm the concept of a Federal Scholarship for Service program while serving in the White House PCAST working group.

He is currently working on how to incorporate AI technologies into the infosec/cybersecurity profession at the strategic/tactical/operational levels. He asks you to “Please contact me for further information and how we may collaborate in this technology!”

Meeting Details: This will be a hybrid meeting (both in-person and on-line). You may attend remotely via Zoom (see below) or attend in person at Capsity, 3808 Broadway, Sacramento CA. Lunch will be provided to in-person attendees.

Please register for the meeting below. 

You don’t have to be a member of ISSA to attend our meetings (but we encourage you to join us!). Please share information about this meeting with your friends and colleagues who have an interest in information security.

Zoom link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84186623031?pwd=EtHkuqg0it61fhLsaZIpC8aCHldHG9.1

Meeting ID: 841 8662 3031
Passcode: 668146