UNCOMMON EXPERTISE

FOUNDING PARTNER

Dr. Michael Ehrlich brings over 25 years of experience in offensive and defensive cybersecurity operations, cybersecurity-related public policy, and cybersecurity strategy development to TRIFIDENT. His cybersecurity expertise is ground in 10 years of service at the National Security Agency where his roles included: Chief of Operations for an organization charged with defending US classified networks; division chief and developer focused on creating and deploying offensive cyber capabilities; and as a detailee to the Department of Homeland Security where he defined and drafted significant portions of National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 - the Comprehensive National Cyber Initiative.

Following NSA, Dr. Ehrlich continued developing and deploying offensive cyber capabilities for the Intelligence Community as a Director at Blackbird Technologies (acquired by Raytheon).

In 2016 Dr. Ehrlich joined IronNet, serving as their Chief Technology Officer and Cyber Evangelist/Strategist. In this last role Dr. Ehrlich helped assess the cyber maturity of public and private organizations globally and worked with those organizations to develop strategies to improve their cybersecurity posture going forward.

Michael serves as a Fellow of the National Security Institute at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia School of Law.

FOUNDING PARTNER

Mr. Ford is an information security veteran with over 20 years of experience in a wide variety of roles. A veteran of the U.S. Air Force, Mr. Ford started his career at Bell Labs and Lucent Technolgies where he led network security services for federal, civilian, and enterprise customers.

Subsequent to Bell Labs, Mr. Ford held increasingly strategic roles, first with SAIC, then as the CISO for three major enterprise firms in the healthcare and technology sectors. He then found and successfully sold Sienna Group, a data protection firm dedicated to discovering and securing regulatory and intellectual property data.

Prior to founding TRIFIDENT, Mr. Ford led the IronNet Global Professional Services organization. He was responsible for overseeing and delivering cybersecurity maturity assessments for public and private organizations, helped organizations hone their forward-looking cyber strategies across operations, technology, and personnel, and engaged C-level and Board-level executives in table top exercises.

FOUNDING PARTNER

Mr. Swearingen is an industry leader in cyber defense strategy, and has over 18 years of experience in both technical and executive cyber security roles. He has devoted his career to building and protecting critical infrastructure and Fortune 100 companies from advanced threats. He brings direct experience from ‘hands on keyboard’ experience from being on the front lines, and in-depth understanding of the challenges security teams are faced with. He has experience combating (and dismantling) the largest and most advanced threats, often at an internet-wide scale.

CYBER SECURITY IS HIS PASSION .

Prior to founding TRIFIDENT, Mr. Swearingen led IronNet’s Global Incident Response and Red Teaming services. He was responsible for delivering outstanding cyber-related services, including the development and execution of executive-level and technical table top exercises, leading red/purple team engagements, and commanding incident response activities during crisis situations.

SENIOR ADVISOR

Mr. Hamilton currently serves as a Strategic Advisor to Trifident Cybersecurity. Mr. Hamilton is a former Senior Intelligence Service (SIS-4) Executive, Operations
Officer and 31-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) National Clandestine Service (NCS). Mr. Hamilton served as Chief of Station (COS) for three of CIA’s flagship stations in the Middle East, South East Asia and Eastern Europe. He led some of the USG’s most significant Counter-Terrorist Operations for six years post 9/11 - resulting in thwarted attacks and enhanced protection of the U.S. homeland.

As NCS Division Chief for the Counter-Proliferation Center, Mr. Hamilton led CIA’s and the U.S. Intelligence Community’s worldwide operations against the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). He oversaw the creation of the Strategic Interdiction Group (SIG), which continues to serve as the epicenter for joint U.S. Military, Intelligence and Law Enforcement
interdictions of WMD world-wide.

Mr. Hamilton served as Senior Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Advisor to the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) Intelligence Division where he developed new mechanisms for closing the gaps between U.S. Law Enforcement and National Intelligence capabilities aimed at defeating terrorist threats against our Nation.

During his 19 years abroad, Mr. Hamilton forged close relationships with Head of State level Foreign Leaders and senior officials in the political, military and security arenas; advancing critical U.S. strategic objectives and protecting our closest allies. Mr Hamilton developed deep substantive expertise in the Middle East, Asia, South East Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He retains basic proficiency in Russian, Polish, Japanese and Arabic languages.

Mr. Hamilton is the recipient of the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the National
Security Agency (NSA) Director’s Medal, the FBI Director’s Commendation and numerous
USG and foreign government awards for national security contributions and leadership.