We held our first-ever Cybersecurity Summit on Tuesday at The Maryland Theatre. The morning was filled with valuable insights from experts, as community leaders gathered to learn about cybersecurity and ways to safeguard their organizations.
We kicked off the morning with a small business panel discussion. It featured Mike Fried, VP and CIO at Meritus Health, Michelle Mummert, VP of finance at Lightning Transportation, and Mike Sappenfield, CFO at Mellott Company. These leaders discussed their approach to cybersecurity and informed the audience on what to look for when choosing the right IT provider.
That panel, which was also recorded as an episode of our podcast, Innovative Leadership, can be heard here!
Our panel was followed by an exciting disaster recovery demo led by our CIO, Tyler Snyder. In it, he showed the importance of having backups that are retrievable in a timely manner. You never know when your devices might fail (or, as shown in this demonstration, get destroyed by a baseball bat). It's essential to keep reliable backups so your business can remain operational.
Then, our partners at Blackpoint Cyber, Jason Rathbun, Technical Director of Threat Ops, and Brendan Dunworth, Senior Watch Officer, explained how their team identifies and responds to various cyber incidents, including cloud compromises and how these can escalate to an on-premises attack. They even shared a few real-life examples where they quickly rectified a bad actor gaining access to someone’s system.
This highlighted the importance of working with IT providers who can respond quickly. While a business can take many proactive measures to prevent cyberattacks, it still needs the resources to respond quickly when something goes wrong.
Next, our Director of Business Development, Stephanie Hurd, discussed how artificial intelligence factors into the cybersecurity conversation. While organizations should be careful about what tools they use and the information they input, allowing employees to explore and find new ways to increase productivity is also essential.
The best way to do this is to outline a policy ensuring accountability and setting clear AI usage boundaries. Similar to an internet use policy or bring your own device policy, an AI policy can provide guardrails in an ever-changing industry full of unknowns.
Click here to read our blog on AI policies.
This segment was followed by Brian Mahon, founder of Igloo Insurance. Brian explained how cyber insurance fits into a business's overall cybersecurity plan and what every leader needs to know before selecting a policy. He also shared some emerging trends in his industry, how it has evolved, and what's coming next for cyber insurance carriers and policyholders.
To conclude the morning, we were honored to be joined by FBI Special Agent Jonathan Lund, who shared eye-opening cybercrime stories and trends with our audience. He emphasized the importance of vigilance against cyber criminals and explained how the internet and our devices can be weaponized.
We thank all our guests, speakers, The Maryland Theatre, its fantastic staff, and everyone who helped make our Cybersecurity Summit a success! It was inspiring to meet local leaders and discuss the issues we all face and how we can stay vigilant moving forward.
