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On September 22, AttackIQ announced the appointment of Dave Mihelcic as field chief technology officer – federal. A former chief technology officer of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Mihelcic will help federal agencies modernize cyber defense operations by adopting proactive, threat-informed, and AI-powered capabilities that continuously validate defensive effectiveness and improve mission readiness.
In his new role, Mihelcic will work directly with federal technology and cyber leaders to translate mission requirements into operational CTEM programs. He will help federal agencies move beyond periodic assessments, compliance-driven exercises, and reactive security processes toward a continuous operating model that uses current threat intelligence, adversary emulation, and evidence-based validation to identify defensive gaps, optimize controls, and measurably reduce threat debt.
Mihelcic will also guide federal adoption of AttackIQ’s AVA Agentic OS, the agentic operating system purpose-built for CTEM. AVA orchestrates specialized AI agents across cyber threat intelligence, adversary exposure validation, detection engineering, control optimization, attack-path reduction, and AI security validation. By transforming fragmented and labor-intensive security activities into coordinated cyber missions, AVA enables federal cyber teams to operate with greater speed, scale, and precision while keeping human experts in command of priorities and mission decisions.
“Dave understands better than almost anyone what it takes to design, deploy, and sustain technology for the federal government’s most consequential missions,” said Carl Wright, chief commercial officer at AttackIQ. “His experience as DISA’s CTO, combined with his deep understanding of the operational realities facing Federal cyber teams, will be invaluable as agencies shift from reactive security and periodic compliance to continuous, AI-enabled cyber defense. Dave will help our customers turn CTEM into an operational capability, and he will bring the leadership and accountability required to ensure the DISA AEV program delivers measurable mission success across the Department of War.”
As field CTO – federal, Mihelcic will also be responsible for program management of the AttackIQ DISA enterprise Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) program. DISA selected AttackIQ as the enterprise AEV platform for deployment across the Department of War, establishing a common capability for continuously assessing defenses against real-world adversary behavior and providing enterprise visibility into cyber readiness.
Mihelcic will coordinate closely with DISA, Defense Agencies, Military Services, Combatant Commands, mission partners, and AttackIQ teams to drive deployment, adoption, workforce enablement, operational consistency, and measurable mission outcomes. His responsibilities will include aligning implementation with mission priorities, establishing a repeatable operating model across participating organizations, accelerating the effective use of AVA Agentic OS and AttackIQ’s validation capabilities, and ensuring leaders receive actionable evidence about defensive performance.
“Federal agencies are facing adversaries that are using automation and artificial intelligence to operate faster and at greater scale, and our defensive model must evolve accordingly,” said Mihelcic. “AttackIQ gives cyber leaders the ability to continuously test what matters, understand whether their defenses will perform against relevant adversary behaviors, and use evidence to focus resources where they will have the greatest mission impact. I am excited to help Federal agencies operationalize this proactive approach and to work with DISA and the Department to ensure the enterprise AEV program delivers lasting and significant improvements in cyber readiness.”
Source: AttackIQ
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