Retail & Hospitality ISAC Announces Award Winners

The Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC) announced its 2022 award winners during the annual membership meeting held on September 20 in Frisco, Texas. The awards recognize outstanding companies and individuals who have displayed extraordinary dedication to RH-ISAC’s mission to build a collaborative sharing community that enables consumer-facing organizations to defend against cyber threats.

CISO of the Year: Ben Vaughn, Hyatt Hotels

Ben Vaughn, senior vice president and the chief information security officer (CISO) at Hyatt Hotels, won the 2022 Peer Choice Award for CISO of the Year. This award honors exceptional leadership and recognizes a recipient that is a thought leader whose experiences add strategic value and whose engagements are an asset to the larger community.

Ben is a highly engaged member of the RH-ISAC, where he serves as a member of the board of directors and is an active participant in the CISO community. In 2022, he presented a webinar about bot mitigation as part of the Cyber Thursday series, and he helped facilitate an RH-ISAC regional workshop event in Chicago at Hyatt’s headquarters.

Cybersecurity Practitioner of the Year: Seth Monteleone

Seth Monteleone, cybersecurity analyst at Lowe’s Companies Inc., earned the 2022 Peer Choice Award for Cybersecurity Practitioner of the Year, which honors a cyber intelligence practitioner who has demonstrated significant time, energy, and involvement to add value to the RH-ISAC by sharing threat intelligence and contributing content to events.

Seth is one of the most active RH-ISAC members, and he regularly contributes valuable intel on RH-ISAC’s Member Exchange and Slack channels. He is also a member of multiple RH-ISAC working groups and actively participates in the weekly intelligence call.

Associate Member of the Year: Palo Alto

The Peer Choice Award for Associate Member of the Year honors a company that has displayed valuable support to RH-ISAC members by offering thought leadership, actionable intelligence, and other resources. The 2022 recipient of this award is Palo Alto Networks, a global cybersecurity solutions provider that regularly publishes content in its Unit 42 CTI Blog, providing members with valuable insight into intel threat trends.

Additional Awards

In addition to the Peer Choice Awards, the RH-ISAC recognized the following individuals and companies for outstanding contributions to the RH-ISAC community.

• Fast Starter Award: This award is given to an organization that has been a Core Member for less than 12 months but has quickly become a valuable contributor across RH-ISAC sharing platforms. The 2022 winner is United Airlines.
• Team Player of the Year: This award honors an RH-ISAC member practitioner who has demonstrated significant selflessness in providing expertise and leadership in one or more working groups – including presenting or facilitating sessions and spearheading new working groups – within the last 12 months. The 2022 winner is Jeff Mercer, senior cyber incident handler at Kontoor Brands. 
• Sharing & Collaboration Challenge – Teams: The recipients of this award are based on cumulative points earned over the past 12 months in the Sharing & Collaboration Challenge, which tracks team participation in various RH-ISAC channels. Winners are awarded in four categories based on the number of employees on the team. The first-place winners in each category for 2022 are Crutchfield Corporation, Gap Inc., Marriott International, and Lowe’s Companies Inc.
• Sharing & Collaboration Challenge – Individual: This award is given to the individual who earned the most points in the Sharing & Collaboration Challenge over the past 12 months. The 2022 winner is Seth Monteleone, cybersecurity analyst at Lowe’s Companies Inc.