James Clapper, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Jan. 7 announced the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center’s (CTIIC) leadership of Tonya Ugoretz as director, Maurice Bland as deputy director, and Thomas Donahue as research director.
Originally established in a presidential memorandum in February 2015, the CTIIC is meant to fuse intelligence and “connect the dots” efforts regarding malicious foreign cyber threats to the United States and incidents affecting U.S. national interests. The CTIIC’s goal is to make relevant departments, agencies, and policymakers aware of cyber threats as close to real time as possible.
The CTIIC was later authorized and funded by Congress in the December omnibus bill.
“CTIIC will lead integrated community analysis of our cyber adversaries and support interagency efforts to develop whole-of-government opportunities against cyber threats. It will build understanding of cyber threats to inform government-wide decision-making,” Clapper said in a statement.
“I am confident this capable team will work seamlessly with intelligence community and federal partners to integrate intelligence on foreign cyber threat capabilities and activities, and I look forward to working with them over the coming year,” Clapper added.
Ugoretz has served as a career FBI intelligence analyst with experience in multiagency environments. Her assignments included work with the CIA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Intelligence Council. Ugoretz also served in the Senior Executive Service as the FBI’s Chief Intelligence Officer overseeing the bureau’s Senior National Intelligence Officers and intelligence support to the FBI Director.
Bland has served as a career intelligence professional for over 25 years, most recently assigned as the National Security Agency (NSA) associate deputy director for cyber. Earlier, he served three tours of duty with the NSA and two combat tours in support of Iraq and Afghanistan operations, retiring as a colonel from the U.S. Army. Bland is also a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service.
Donahue served in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for almost 30 years as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service. His roles in the agency include chief editor of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) and other daily CIA production as well as 16 years dedicated to cyber threats as a manager and senior analyst in the Information Operations Center. Donahue also served for four years at the White House, most recently as the senior director for cyber operations for the National Security Council Staff.
ODNI highlighted the CTIIC will act similar to the other mission centers of the Office of the DNI (ODNI), like the National Counterproliferation Center and National Counterintelligence and Security Center, by integrating an interagency team focused on one core mission, ODNI said.
The new center will allow the government “to unify intelligence in support of network defense and law enforcement efforts to better address the most pressing cyber threats to our nation in support of the administration’s strategic cybersecurity goals of raising our cyber defenses, disrupting adversary activity, and effectively responding to cyber incidents,” ODNI added.
Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas welcomed the announcement.
“The CTIIC is vital because the foreign cyber threats we face as a nation are increasing in volume and sophistication. The CTIIC will help DHS better understand various cyber threats and provide targeted intelligence community support to the Department’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), which will in turn enable us to share more actionable and timely information with the private sector,” Mayorkas said in a statement.
DHS’s cyber center, the NCCIC, differs from the new CTIIC in that it helps private sector and government entities defense against cyber threats through information sharing, encouraging the adoption of best practices, and responding to cyber incidents.