AI Leadership · AI Leadership Hires
Dragos Hires SANS Veteran Rob T. Lee as Its First Chief AI Officer
After 25-plus years at SANS, Lee will advise customers' executives on securing AI in industrial systems.
· 2 min read
Dragos, which secures electric, water and manufacturing operators, added an AI seat to its executive team that reports directly to founder and CEO Robert M. Lee, the company said.
The hire puts AI oversight for operational technology (OT), the systems that run industrial plants, on a security vendor’s executive roster. Dragos said operators often decide what AI may touch without OT security context, and the new post is meant to supply it. Dragos did not say how many customers already run AI in operations.
What is the job?
Rob T. Lee will advise customers and their executive leadership on adopting and securing AI in OT. Beyond the client work, he will work with AI developers to bring OT knowledge into the systems built for critical infrastructure, publish research for the OT security community and advise Dragos’s own teams as they use more AI.
He and Robert M. Lee will discuss what it means for asset owners in a joint webinar on Nov. 23.
Why does OT change the AI question?
Robert M. Lee said Dragos has seen strong AI adoption inside the company, but the effect on customers’ operations “hasn’t been fully explored.” Operators are adopting AI faster than OT-specific guidance is written, Dragos said, and they must also prepare for adversaries that increasingly use AI.
Rob T. Lee put the difference in plain terms. “In an IT network you can let an agent make a mistake and roll it back. That does not work in a water plant,” he said. In OT, he added, the model has to show its work and a person has to know when to step in.
Why Lee?
He spent more than 25 years at SANS Institute developing and teaching courses for security practitioners, and most recently served as its chief AI officer and chief of research, where he wrote the Secure AI Blueprint and led development of the Critical AI Security Guidelines.
He also directed threat intelligence and threat hunting at Mandiant, and he began as a U.S. Air Force officer and founding member of the service’s first information warfare unit.
The test for an operator is whether its own decisions about what AI may touch get made with OT security input.
