The American Bankers Association announces with great sorrow the death of employee Doug Johnson, one of the nation’s preeminent bank security experts. Johnson died on Oct. 12 due to complications from pancreatic cancer.
Johnson was a leader in a wide range of banking sector security and technology initiatives. He was a founding board member and a former vice chairman of the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council, an advisory board member of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and he played a lead role in the establishment of cyber resilience initiative Sheltered Harbor, the launch of the .bank top-level domain and the development of ABA Bank Capture.
During his 18 years at ABA and a four-decade career in banking, Johnson became one of the most quoted experts on a wide range of bank security and risk management topics, in particular cybersecurity. Since 2015, he had been interviewed for nearly 350 articles and broadcast stories — by far ABA’s most quoted expert.
“Doug was invaluable to ABA and to our industry,” said ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols. “There was no one who more effectively or effortlessly helped the public understand how banks keep customers’ money safe. The industry has lost a dedicated leader and communicator, and we at ABA have lost a generous colleague and a good friend.”