The National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA), a cybersecurity industry leader within the supply chain, announced today the appointment of Cara Walls as Director of Cybersecurity.
Walls joins the organization with over a decade of experience in cybersecurity leadership for highly regulated global industries and companies such as Coyote Logistics, UMB, H&R Block, and New York Life. In her new role, she will lead the cybersecurity initiatives for NMFTA, which will focus on enterprise networks, systems, and assets – such as trucks – used to support the global supply chain and the United States transportation industry.
“NMFTA has found a true leader and cybersecurity industry expert in Walls,” said Debbie Sparks, executive director of NMFTA. “Her direct experience in supply chain security brings a unique skill set and approach to handling the ever-growing vulnerabilities found in the technical connectivity of our industry. She allows us to provide one of the nation’s critical infrastructures with specific learning programs to effectively combat the exclusive and escalating threats we face.”
Walls’ understanding of the unique needs of the trucking and logistics industry, coupled with her expertise from the University of Louisiana Graduate Program, where she is a Lead Instructor and Curriculum Developer in cybersecurity has positioned her to be able to lead cyber education at NMFTA. In her career, Walls has been recognized as a thought leader and frequent speaker within the cybersecurity industry with her work being presented at several national conferences. Her methods for practical, risk-based security have been adopted by many – achieving digital transformations that resulted in a 61% reduction in vulnerability exposure, cyber vault implementations for enterprise-scale recovery, and cloud architecture alignment that led to 27% lower cost.
Through her service at the University of Louisiana, Walls has overseen dozens of cybersecurity research projects, produced cybersecurity subject matter experts mentored peers, and curated comprehensive cybersecurity programs designed to align with critical technical competencies such as information technology (IT) versus operational technology (OT), networking, digital forensics and incident response (DFIR), threat intelligence, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for security, cloud security, ethical hacking, knowledge management, and more.
“I’m excited to build on strategic stakeholder relationships with NMFTA partners to help them meet their business’ needs and stay secure in the process,” said Walls. “Our goal is to ensure that the industry can be resilient in the face of evolving threats to the supply chain. I’m poised and ready to help navigate NMFTA and industry leaders that look to us for guidance.”
In her new role, Walls will lead NMFTA’s Cybersecurity Conference, an annual event which brings together experts from all facets of the supply chain, academia, and the government. She’ll also oversee the association’s cybersecurity education, industry cyber initiatives and training initiatives, which will propel the industry into a more secure environment. More information about the annual conference can be found here: www.nmftacyber.com.
Walls’ expertise will also be leveraged further in cybersecurity research and resources available to the public via the NMFTA website and its quarterly Trucking Cybersecurity Trends Report.
