Russell Koste

Russell Koste is the Director of Identity, Intelligence and Network Defense for the Cyber Intelligence Division of Northrop Grumman’s Information Systems sector. Mr. Koste reports to the company’s Chief Information Security Officer and is responsible for protecting the Northrop Grumman network with a full suite of cyber counterintelligence and defense in-depth assets. Mr. Koste also leads cybersecurity efforts with the U.S. Government to assist the future of network protection for critical infrastructure industries. This includes spearheading efforts to promote broad adoption of strong identity and access management standards across the company’s vast supply chain.

Previously, Mr. Koste was Director of Identity and Access Management, where he was responsible for building the aerospace and defense community’s first Department of Defense (DOD) interoperable identity infrastructure. Mr. Koste successfully deployed this award-winning physical and logical identity solution – known as OneBadge – throughout Northrop Grumman. These world-class identity and access solutions remain part of Mr. Koste’s overall defense in-depth portfolio.

Earlier, Mr. Koste held a series of increasingly responsible program management positions, including the company’s first counter-Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) program, and the company’s participation in the DOD-defense industrial base cybersecurity information sharing program. As a junior program manager, Mr. Koste was selected into a Leadership Rotation Program sponsored by the Chief Information Officer. This management development initiative took Mr. Koste on several 6-month rotations through business units across the company.

Mr. Koste has a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from Dickinson College, where he also received a commission in the U.S. Army through the ROTC Scholarship Program. Mr. Koste served in the U.S. Army’s Field Artillery and Signal Corps in Korea and Ft. Meade, Md., from 1995 to 1999. Mr. Koste also has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

Mr. Koste is a board member for Utica College’s Economic Crime Institute and the Transglobal Secure Collaboration Program as well as the Internet Security Alliance, a multi-sector cybersecurity trade association focused on building a sustainable system of cybersecurity. Mr. Koste brings subject matter expertise on defense-in-depth cyber strategies and program execution in increasingly complex cybersecurity environment.