The successful careers of Former White House Fellow, Jermon Bafaty, and Chief Data Officer at
NASA, Ron Thompson, have helped shape the industry for decades between the two of them.
Bafaty and Thompson have a unique perspective on how to use, share and secure data in the
federal government. One of the biggest motivations for both leaders is being routinely cited
for how to support the American citizen and other agencies. Cyber Chat Host, Sean Kelley sits
back down with Bafaty and Thompson to discuss the state of data, data usage, and data
security in the second show of this two-part show
Bafaty recently completed his term with the president’s commission on White House
Fellowships; he served as a Senior Advisor within the Department of Energy. He is now the
Founder and CEO of Platinum Technologies; at Platinum, Bafaty shares his thoughts on what
data is today and offers digital and professional services to federal, state and local customers.
Bafaty shared his thoughts on reducing data loss and data protections; he said, ’’the
opportunity in data is understanding how to implement it.’’ He continued, ‘’How do you
reconstitute information on data related to cyber threat or a system failure? When you think
about data loss and then add on how to actually protect the data in multi-tenant
environments, you go back to thinking about what the organizational priorities are and then
begin implementing a system that addresses those items. Attack the most fragile aspects of
your infrastructure first; be sure you are able to reconstitute the data right in front before
making sure that you can also protect the security of the data.’’
Technology in this day and age play a role in data loss protection. Data loss is a very key term
when talking to companies like Forcepoint, regarding data loss prevention software. Thompson
said, ‘’we are actually seeing the industry improve in data resiliency, the ability for loss
prevention, the tools and the capabilities to improve in these areas. I think we have a long way
to go, said Thompson, and we don’t want to under build a solution or overbuild a solution to
ensure we are striking a balance and finding resiliency.’’ Bafaty added “I agree with Ron, when
he said ‘’there are many good tools out there.’’ The next challenge may be for industries to
make sure that they have the right technical resources to help our federal, state and local
customers achieve their missions. Data and data security is important, but NASA has a very
special and important mission to enable functions that allow the mission to succeed. At
Platinum, we’re making the investment on the technical resource by ensuring that
organizations have the right program plan in place that keeps the controls, future-proof, and
consistency across the board that allows the data to be liberated, but in a secured, fashion.”
NASA is next for Thompson, he said “we are making digital transformation and transformation
in general a top priority for the agency. I will be co-leading the business innovation office and
that office will be looking across NASA for areas of opportunities to increase our awareness
regarding data, data security, and additional areas for transformation. It is an exciting time for
one of the key initiatives we’re working on.’’
Bafaty said, ‘’I want to be an enabler for our nation; the reason why I decided to go out and
launch this organization is because I truly believe in the impact our federal government can
have on our nation’s citizens. I want my organization to be an enabler through technology,
through this transformation, with the people and to provide the necessary underlying
technologies that are needed for our citizens. That is the core ethos of who we are as a
company and we want to transform ideas into game changing solutions. We just look forward
to doing that as a provider of services and hopefully can be considered as a partner to the
federal state and local government.’’

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.