Individual Bio
Mr. Ruben Gavilan is an award-winning and motivated Defensive Cyber operations specialist with over 20 years of cybersecurity experience. Starting his cyber career with the US Navy as a Cryptologist at the age of 17, Mr. Gavilan has an exceptional background in the identification and remediation of security threats for his clients. In 2016 he founded NexThreat, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business specializing in Defensive Cyber. Mr. Gavilan actively manages and directs all operations, insisting on results-oriented client interactions and projects. He takes lessons learned from working with DOD, IC, and Fortune 500 companies such as VISA and Morgan Stanley and applies that knowledge and experience to deliver more impactful data exploitation efforts and advice to his firm’s partners and clients. Under his leadership, NexThreat assembles exceptional teams of consultants providing SOC consulting, SIEM consulting, penetration testing, and vulnerability assessment services. These services have led to an average 75%+ reduction in false positives and a quadruple increase in active detections.
A four-year veteran of DHS’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program, Mr. Gavilan has led multiple initiatives in the Dynamic and Evolving Federal Enterprise Defense (DEFEND) program. Most recently, he provided Enterprise Architecture and Data Management direction to the EPA, DoED, NSF, and HUD. Owning to his expertise in SIEM technology and data, he served as Lead Data Architect for the Data Quality program for all agencies under DEFEND E. During his tenure, the DEFEND E program has seen significant and measurable data quality improvements both at the agency and DHS levels, resulting in an average of 40% improvement in data quality across all supported agencies. In addition to evaluating and correcting the CDM Solution at the supported agencies, Mr. Gavilan also led the initial analysis, selection, proposal, sale, and deployment of the Venafi Solution. Owing to Mr. Gavilan’s dedicated efforts, NexThreat maintains its position as the only small business to lead the DHS Data Quality program across any CDM Group.
Mr. Gavilan has been a member of AFCEA since 2017 and joined the Small Business Committee in 2020; he also supports the Business Development Sub-Committee. He aids in driving new membership and delivering increased value to existing members and their respective companies. Increasing efficiency in government contracting and contract performance is a core driver at NexThreat, and Mr. Gavilan discovered that partnering with his fellow AFCEA members increases that efficiency for contractors and the government customers they support.
