Thomas Dempsey CBP

Thomas Dempsey joined the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Information and Technology (OIT) as the Branch Chief of Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) in October 2019. He was selected as the Director of Cyber Risk Management (CRM) in April of 2022. Prior to joining CBP, Thomas was assigned to a Marine Corps Cyber Protection Teams (CPTs) as a Civilian Marine. He has an extensive and diverse background in cybersecurity and information systems encompassing experience from the military, public, and private sectors. Thomas served as an enlisted Marine in the U.S. Marine Corps and has held roles in information systems security, cyber network defense, and security authorization with components in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). He has worked for Marine Corps Cyber Command as the Chief Information Systems Security Manager, and he has also worked for SE Solutions as a Lead Information Systems Security Officer. Thomas established the CRM Division through the implementation of a strategy that aligns to the CBP cybersecurity strategy to identify and address cyber risks. CRM is responsible for the identification, communication, and distribution of cybersecurity risks and actionable mitigations or remediations at the tactical and strategic levels within the CBP information technology environment. Leading the CRM Division, Thomas has established a Component Cyber Acquisition Risk Management (C-CARM) Integrated Product Team (IPT) to integrate cybersecurity into information systems early in the Acquisition Lifecycle Framework (ALF) and has developed and is implementing a quantitative risk assessment process to identify new and existing risks for the CBP information systems. While working as the Branch Chief for CTI, Thomas developed and implemented a cyber threat hunting capability to proactively search the CBP enterprise for Advance Persistent Threats (APTs), initiate incident response activities, and develop analytics to further detect advanced cyber threat actor. Thomas has also served as a Security Assurance Manager (SAM) supporting Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) Information Technology Portfolio. He oversaw the implementation and continuous monitoring of the Risk Management Framework required security controls and ensured that all systems maintained an Authority to Operate (ATO) while staying compliant with all applicable federal laws and regulations. Thomas holds multiple industry certifications including Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and has earned a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology Management, a Master of Cybersecurity and is currently a doctoral student in Strategic Intelligence at American Military University.