Under Cyberthreat: Defense Contractors

Tim McKnight is well acquainted with threats to cybersecurity. A former special agent with the FBI, he specialized in corporate espionage and foreign counterintelligence. He's also handled information security for Cisco Systems (CSCO) and BAE Systems and has participated in a group called the Transglobal Secure Collaboration Program, whose mission is protecting intellectual property in the aerospace industry.

Those security chops are tested daily in McKnight's role as chief information security officer at Northrop Grumman (NOC). The defense industry faces "a near-existential threat from state-sponsored foreign intelligence services" that target sensitive IP, according to a report by the Internet Security Alliance, a nonprofit organization on whose board McKnight sits.