Marcus H. Sachs
Distinguished Lecturer
Vice President of Government Affairs, National Security Policy, Verizon Communications
Marcus H. Sachs is Vice President of Government Affairs, National Security Policy at Verizon Communications, where he assists federal, state, and local officials with national security emergency preparedness and cyber policy coordination in the communications sector. At Verizon, he assists business units with integrating national security emergency preparedness policy into network operations, support for critical infrastructure, and protection of Verizon's global corporate assets.
External to Verizon, Sachs serves as Vice Chair of the Communications Sector Coordinating Council and supports several other public/private advisory working groups and task forces. In 2007, he was named a member of the CSIS Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency, and from 2003 to 2010, he was Director of the SANS Internet Storm Center. Earlier, he had a 20-year military career as an officer in the U.S. Army, followed by two years of federal civilian service at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. In 1998, he was selected by the Secretary of Defense to be an initial member of the Joint Task Force for Computer Network Defense, a military unit organized to conduct cyberspace operations in reaction to growing foreign threats targeting sensitive military networks. After retiring from the military, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve concurrently on the staff of the National Security Council as the Director for Communication Infrastructure Protection in the White House Office of Cyberspace Security and on the staff of the president's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. Sachs joined the National Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security in June 2003, where he implemented the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, including the launch of US-CERT.
Sachs holds a Master's of Science in Computer Science with a concentration in Information Security from James Madison University, a Master's of Science in Science and Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelor of Civil Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also a graduate of the Army's Command and General Staff College, the Army Engineer School, the Army Computer Science School, and the Army's Airborne and Air Assault schools. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Public Policy at George Mason University and is a senior faculty member of SANS Technology Institute.