Anthony J. Ferrante

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Anthony J. Ferrante is an American cybersecurity expert and former government official. He has held senior roles at the FBI and the White House National Security Council (NSC). He now leads cybersecurity at FTI Consulting as Global Head of Cybersecurity.

Education and early work: Ferrante earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Fordham University in 2001 and a Master’s in Computer Science in 2004. He helped start Fordham’s International Conference on Cyber Security and contributed to the university’s cybersecurity programs. In 2021, he joined Fordham’s President’s Council executive committee.

FBI and NSC career: He began with the FBI in 2005 as a special agent in New York. In 2006 he joined the FBI’s Cyber Action Team, a rapid-response unit. He rose to Chief of Staff of the FBI Cyber Division and worked to connect law enforcement with academia. He helped Fordham launch the ICCS conference in 2009. From 2015 to 2017, he was the Director for Cyber Incident Response at the NSC, where he helped shape national cyber policy and incident response plans. He supervised the 2016 investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. election and helped organize the federal election-security response.

Private sector work: In 2017 he joined FTI Consulting as a Senior Managing Director and later became Global Head of Cybersecurity, building the firm’s cyber risk and incident response practice. In 2018–2019 his team led a digital forensics project into the hack of Jeff Bezos’s smartphone, finding evidence tied to a WhatsApp message from a phone connected to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince. He also contributed to inquiries related to the Steele dossier and, in a defamation case, provided cyber findings used in court records before the case was dismissed.

Election security and ongoing work: While at the NSC, Ferrante helped set up the U.S. government’s Election Day cyber-response plan and coordinated with federal and state officials on potential threats to election infrastructure. He has said forensic analysis found intrusions in several states during the election period, including Illinois, though there was no evidence of vote manipulation. He continues to work on high-level cybersecurity issues in the private sector.