Background
Matthew (Matt) Nickasch is the founder, President and Principal Engineer of Leading Defense LLC, a Washington, DC cybersecurity and network engineering practice he has led since 2016. His experience spans more than 15 years as a subject-matter expert in cybersecurity, service provider and ISP network engineering, architecture and operations, and intelligence analysis.
His federal client portfolio includes serving as a Subject Matter Expert, Senior Task Force Officer and Special Consultant to agencies, committees and task forces across the whole of the U.S. government.
In the private sector, he advises companies and organizations on cyber risk assessment, continuity of operations and disaster recovery.
Areas of focus
- Service provider & ISP networksCarrier-class backbones and the services built on them
- Network architecture & operationsDesign through day-to-day operation and change
- Cybersecurity & secure accessSegmentation, firewalls and identity-based access
- Secure cloud & identityAWS, Azure, private cloud and directory services
- ComplianceCMMC and NIST SP 800-171 readiness
- Cyber risk & resilienceRisk assessment, continuity of operations, disaster recovery
- Intelligence analysisSupport to federal agencies and task forces