Bret Hartman is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Cisco’s Security Business Group where he and his team are focused on the future direction of the industry and the role Cisco plays in preparing its customers for the security landscape of tomorrow.
Since joining Cisco in 2012, Bret has introduced the security architecture strategy, which guides Cisco’s security business today. With the customer top of mind, Bret drives internal and external technology innovations and integrations to solve key customer challenges. Bret and his team have identified and helped to secure key acquisitions including: Duo, Sourcefire, OpenDNS, and Lancope.
As a trusted security leader Bret is often invited to speak with and present to executives, senior government officials and policy makers seeking a better understanding of today’s cyber security trends and how they’re shaping tomorrow’s landscape.
Bret has four decades of experience building information security solutions for major enterprises. His expertise includes cloud, virtualization, security policy management, security modeling, service oriented architecture, and web services security.
Prior to Cisco, Bret was Chief Technology Officer of RSA and an EMC Fellow, where he defined the security technology strategy for EMC. This strategy drove the acquisition of RSA Security and the creation of the Security Division of EMC. Bret began his distinguished career as a U.S. Air Force officer assigned to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). At NSA, Bret helped create the “DoD Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria” (The Orange Book) which serves as the foundation for today’s international standard for computer security certification, also known as Common Criteria. Bret holds a patent for enterprise application security integration and has co-authored security industry specifications and security technology books. In his current role, Bret continues to influence and drive industry standards development.
Bret holds a B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland.