William Wetherill

William Wetherill is the Chief Information Security Officer of DefenseStorm, appointed effective January 1, 2024. DefenseStorm provides cyber risk assessment, governance, security, and fraud solutions built for community and regional banks and credit unions.

Career path

Before becoming CISO, Wetherill served as DefenseStorm's Director of Cybersecurity Operations. In that period he led the company's Cyber Threat Surveillance Operations Team (CTS Ops) for two years, work that DefenseStorm credited with building trust among clients and employees. Earlier in his career, Wetherill was Chief Information Security Officer at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), where he built and managed the university's Information Security Program. He holds the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) credentials, and has more than 27 years of IT experience, roughly a third of it concentrated in cybersecurity.

Remit at DefenseStorm

In announcing his appointment, Wetherill described the priorities he intended to bring to the role: "I'm excited to leverage my expertise, as well as our teams', in strategic planning, risk management, incident response, and cybersecurity program maturation to ensure continued resiliency in the face of emerging threats." DefenseStorm said he carries the certifications expected for the CISO position and highlighted his experience serving financial institutions' cyber risk needs.

Published work

Wetherill has continued to publish under his own byline on DefenseStorm's company blog, with posts appearing as of June 2026. He has also contributed to industry coverage of security operations, including a piece on the evolution of the security operations center published through Security Magazine in June 2024 titled The modern security operations center: Shaping the future of SOCs. Security Magazine's author page for Wetherill identifies him as Chief Information Security Officer of DefenseStorm.