Robert Knake Joins the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program

I am pleased to announce that Robert Knake has joined the Council on Foreign Relations’ Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program. Rob will be a contributor to Net Politics, where he will primarily examine cybersecurity and Internet governance issues.

Rob served from 2011 to 2015 as Director for Cybersecurity Policy at the National Security Council. In this role, he was responsible for the development of presidential policy on cybersecurity, and built and managed federal processes for cyber incident response and vulnerability management. Federal Computer Week dubbed him the “White House’s Cyber Wizard” for his work on Executive Order 13636 on Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, which directed the creation of the National Institute of Standards & Technology Cybersecurity Framework. He worked to establish presidential policy that created the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center and Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations.

Before joining government, Rob was an International Affairs Fellow-in-Residence at the Council on Foreign Relations where he co-authored Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It and authored the Council Special Report “Internet Governance in an Age of Cyber Insecurity”.

Rob holds a master’s in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and undergraduate degrees in history and government from Connecticut College.