Frum woman to head National Security Agency’s new cybersecurity section
An Orthodox Jewish woman has been tapped to head the National Security Agency’s new Cybersecurity Directorate. She will be one of the highest-ranking woman in the NSA.
Anne (Chani) Neuberger, 43, previously was deputy chief management officer at the U.S. Navy and worked for the Secretary of Defense.
She grew up in Boro Park, where she attended the Bais Yaakov Jewish day school for girls, according to the Yeshiva World News. All her grandparents were Holocaust survivors. She is a graduate of Touro College and the Columbia University business school, and worked in the White House Fellows program. She now lives in Baltimore with her husband and two children.
Neuberger has worked at the NSA for the past decade, helping establish the U.S. Cyber Command and worked as chief risk officer, where she led the agency’s election security efforts for the 2018 midterms. She currently is an assistant deputy director of the agency.
She told the Wall Street Journal that the directorate will more actively use signals intelligence gleaned from expanded operations against adversaries. As part of its mission, the directorate will work to protect the U.S. from foreign threats by sharing insight into specific cyber threats with other federal agencies as well as the private sector.
“I try to lead an examined life,” she told NPR in 2015. “I try to lead a life where I’m asking myself that question: Have I earned the gift of existence, in some way?”
Neuberger will be one of the highest-ranking women at the NSA since Ann Caracristi was named deputy director in 1980, according to the newspaper. Neuberger will report to the agency’s head, Gen. Paul Nakasone.
In a 2012 Jewish Action interview, Neuberger said that for most of her colleagues, she is the first Orthodox Jew they have ever encountered.
“I learned through experience that if you are firmly committed to your principles, people will respect you,” she said.
Updated to correspond with print edition on 7.31.19.
