AttackIQ has appointed former Defense Information Systems Agency Chief Technology Officer Dave Mihelcic as Field Chief Technology Officer – Federal, adding a veteran government technology leader as the cybersecurity company expands its threat-informed Continuous Threat Exposure Management capabilities across federal agencies.
Mihelcic will work directly with federal technology and cybersecurity leaders to help convert mission requirements into operational CTEM programs.
His role will focus on helping agencies move beyond periodic security assessments, compliance-focused exercises, and reactive cybersecurity processes toward a continuous operating model built around current threat intelligence, adversary emulation, and evidence-based validation.
The objective is to give agencies a more persistent understanding of whether their cybersecurity defenses would actually perform against relevant real-world threats.
AttackIQ’s CTEM approach is designed to continuously identify gaps in security controls, prioritize exposures, improve detection coverage and reduce what the company describes as “threat debt,” or accumulated security weaknesses that can increase organizational risk over time.
Mihelcic will also guide federal adoption of AttackIQ’s AVA Agentic OS, an AI-powered operating system developed specifically for CTEM.
AVA coordinates specialized AI agents across several cybersecurity functions, including cyber threat intelligence, adversary exposure validation, detection engineering, security-control optimization, attack-path reduction, and AI security validation.
Rather than treating those functions as separate security activities, AttackIQ designed AVA to coordinate them into broader cyber missions.
The company said the approach can help federal cybersecurity teams operate with greater speed, scale and precision while keeping human cybersecurity professionals responsible for priorities and mission decisions.
Mihelcic’s appointment is also tied to a significant AttackIQ federal deployment.
As Field CTO – Federal, he will be responsible for program management of AttackIQ’s enterprise Adversarial Exposure Validation program with DISA.
According to AttackIQ, DISA selected the company as its enterprise AEV platform for deployment across the Department of War.
The program is intended to provide a common capability for continuously assessing whether defensive systems can withstand real-world adversary behavior while giving leadership greater visibility into cybersecurity readiness.
Mihelcic will coordinate with DISA, Defense Agencies, Military Services, Combatant Commands, mission partners and AttackIQ teams as the program is deployed.
His responsibilities will include driving adoption, workforce enablement and operational consistency while aligning implementation with mission priorities.
He will also work to establish a repeatable operating model that participating organizations can use to apply AttackIQ’s validation technology and AVA Agentic OS across different environments.
A central objective will be turning cybersecurity testing into measurable evidence that senior leaders can use when assessing defensive performance.
AttackIQ said Mihelcic will also help integrate technology, processes, training and governance so the AEV program becomes a sustained operational capability rather than another periodic cybersecurity assessment.
That could become increasingly important as federal agencies contend with attackers using automation and artificial intelligence to accelerate reconnaissance, exploitation and other cyber operations.
AttackIQ’s strategy is based on the idea that defensive organizations need similar automation capabilities while continuously testing whether existing cybersecurity investments are performing as expected.
Mihelcic brings extensive federal technology experience to that effort.
He spent 18 years at DISA and served as the agency’s CTO for more than 12 years.
In that position, Mihelcic served as DISA’s senior authority on scientific, technical and engineering matters and oversaw technology supporting the agency’s role as a major information technology and cybersecurity provider for the Department of War.
He also led a technical workforce of more than 900 engineers and scientists.
His responsibilities included representing DISA on engineering issues with Combatant Commands, Military Services, Defense Agencies, the Intelligence Community and technology companies.
That background gives AttackIQ a senior executive familiar with both the technical requirements and organizational complexity involved in deploying cybersecurity capabilities across large federal environments.
Mihelcic will now apply that experience to helping agencies operationalize continuous security validation.
AttackIQ sees CTEM as an alternative to security programs that rely heavily on compliance measurements or occasional testing.
Under the company’s model, organizations continuously evaluate security controls against adversary behaviors, determine where defenses fail and direct resources toward weaknesses with the greatest potential mission impact.
The company believes AI can accelerate that process by allowing specialized agents to coordinate threat intelligence, validation, detection engineering and remediation activity at significantly greater scale.
Mihelcic’s appointment strengthens AttackIQ’s federal leadership as the company seeks to make that threat-informed operating model more broadly adopted throughout government cybersecurity environments.
KEY QUOTES:
“Dave understands better than almost anyone what it takes to design, deploy, and sustain technology for the federal government’s most consequential missions.”
“His experience as DISA’s CTO, combined with his deep understanding of the operational realities facing Federal cyber teams, will be invaluable as agencies shift from reactive security and periodic compliance to continuous, AI-enabled cyber defense.”
Carl Wright, Chief Commercial Officer of AttackIQ
“Federal agencies are facing adversaries that are using automation and artificial intelligence to operate faster and at greater scale, and our defensive model must evolve accordingly.”
“AttackIQ gives cyber leaders the ability to continuously test what matters, understand whether their defenses will perform against relevant adversary behaviors, and use evidence to focus resources where they will have the greatest mission impact.”
Dave Mihelcic, Field Chief Technology Officer – Federal at AttackIQ
