Luz Rivas — The speaker addressed Madam Chair by referencing her comments about the state losing workers to the private sector, then thanked her for pulling the hearing together.
Luz Rivas — The speaker addresses the Chair and both Chairs, encouraging them to include cybersecurity planning.
Luz Rivas — The speaker addresses Mr. McClellan about gaps between state agencies in tool utilization.
Lieutenant Colonel Miguel Magnuson — Lieutenant Colonel Miguel Magnuson is introduced as a member of the second panel and identified as the chief of the cyber defense network team.
Jared Johnson — Jared Johnson is introduced and then identifies himself as the deputy state chief information officer and chief deputy director for the California Department of Technology.
Douglas Novak — Introduced as the deputy chief state information security officer with the Department of Technology.
Jonathan Snow — Introduced as Deputy Director of Homeland Security with Cal OES.
Jonathan Snow — Introduced himself as Deputy Director of Homeland Security within the Governor's Office of Emergency Services and described CalSIC's role.
Jacqui Irwin — Addressed as Chair Irwin.
Jacqui Irwin — Mentioned as the Assembly Member who codified CalSIC in 2018.
Rhodesia Ransom — Addressed as Chair Ransom.
Doug Novak — Identified as the deputy state chief information security officer.
Doug Novak — Introduces himself as the Deputy State Chief Information Security Officer for the California Department of Technology and begins describing state cybersecurity efforts.
Mr. Doug Novak — The speaker turns the presentation over to Doug Novak.
Deputy Director — A response thanking the deputy director and greeting the committee.
AB670 — Referenced as the bill authorizing independent security assessments, with compliance praised by the speaker.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Magnuson — Introduced himself as chief of the Cyber Network Defense Team and described the California Military Department's cybersecurity staffing and assessment work.
Mr. Snow — Referenced as having addressed the issue of underutilization in depth.
Scott Drexel — Public commenter speaking on behalf of the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing.
Thomas McClellan — Introduced as a witness from Palo Alto Networks.
Thomas McClellan — Thomas McClellan introduced himself as head of Government Affairs for Palo Alto Networks, described his roughly 25–30 years of national-level government affairs experience and his role overseeing U.S. government affairs, and stated that he would avoid discussing specific customers while providing as much detail as possible in public.
Drennan Dudley — Drennan Dudley is introduced as a witness from Zscaler, and he then describes his background, explaining that he works for Zscaler, a cybersecurity company focused on cloud security and zero-trust architecture, where he serves as head of state, local, tribal, and territorial government partnerships.
Zscaler representative — The Zscaler representative described the company’s modern cybersecurity philosophy, contrasting it with the traditional castle-and-moat model. He explained that Zscaler focuses on securing every step of activity by authenticating, validating, and approving electronic movements across networks and the internet. He then outlined Zscaler’s role serving 21 state agencies and discussed its core products, including internet access and digital experience tools that help IT teams monitor security and performance end to end. The discussion later returned to Zscaler’s modern security approach.
Mr. McFalley — Responded that the tools' utilization can be measured and then began discussing California's security maturity goals.
Lisa Calderon — Microsoft was described as offering free training, on-site training, online training, and a large IT course catalog.
Mark González — Asked whether they had any comments before the panel began.
Jeff Brown — Jeff Brown is introduced as a witness from Microsoft, then identifies himself as a chief security officer for Microsoft CyberAdvisor and briefly describes his cybersecurity background in state government.
Jeff Brown — Jeff Brown responded to the committee by describing Microsoft’s strong adoption of G5 across state departments, noting that 98% are licensed and that utilization has grown from 58% to 67% and then 75%. He said Microsoft works closely with Conrad Long, CDT, and field personnel, offers support and training, and emphasized his practitioner perspective of ensuring products are deployed, configured, and used safely and correctly once in the field.