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INTERFACE Virtual Minnesota Iowa 2021 / See You Next Year

IT Infrastructure is constantly changing, bringing more new challenges with it every day. From ransomware and the latest security threats to emerging developments in AI and the need for increased bandwidth and storage, it’s nearly impossible to keep up to date. Our conference is designed to help. We’ve assembled a combination of Best-in-Breed hardware and software solutions, along with local experts and organizations to help educate, advise and connect you to resources that can help you meet your goals.

Covering Information Security, Infrastructure, Cloud, Disaster Recovery, Communications, and more, you’ll find presentations, panel discussions, and exhibitors covering a variety of topics, as well as the latest innovations and best practices.

AT A GLANCE

March 11th, 2021
8:30am – 4:30pm

Virtual Conference
Multi-track seminars with Q&A
1-on-1 chat and networking
Hourly prize drawings

KEYNOTE: It’s Time to Reboot!

  Presented by Riaz Yusuff • Chief Information Officer, OHR, University of Minnesota

Seminar Schedule

  • Theater One
  • Theater Two
  • Sessions
  • Keynote
9:00 - 9:50 AM

Automating the Analyst

  Presented by Darktrace

Alongside the rise of today’s dynamic workforce, the speed and scale of sophisticated cyber-attacks are rapidly increasing. As the cybersecurity industry continues to endure an ongoing skills shortage, over-worked and under-resourced teams urgently need augmentation in order to defend against evolving, sophisticated threats.

For over three years, Darktrace experts have been working to meet this challenge, investigating whether they could teach AI to think like a cybersecurity analyst. It takes subtle, nuanced skills and implicit knowledge for an analyst to detect genuinely threatening activity, and the creation of the world-first Cyber AI Analyst took analyzing over one hundred of the world’s top threat analysts and complex machine learning algorithms. Join Darktrace as we discuss the Cyber AI Analyst in action.

Topics: Information Security
11:00 - 11:50 AM

2021 State of Malware

  Presented by Malwarebytes

Over the past year, the tools and tactics of cybercrime and cybersecurity adapted against a backdrop of enormous changes to our lives and businesses.

Join us to learn how cybercrime evolved in 2020 and identify ways to safeguard your organization against what’s out there.

We’ll explore:

  • Top threats for businesses and consumers
  • Emerging cybercrime trends and tactics
  • Solutions you can employ to thwart future attacks
Topics: Information Security
12:00 - 12:50 PM

Easiest Catch: Don’t Be Another Fish in the Dark ‘Net

  Presented by INTERFACE Advisory Council

You've read the headlines. Unfortunately, the question now is not if your information is going to be accessed or stolen, but when. To inform the attendees of current developments in the digital underground as well as provide realistic advice for cyber protection, Mark Lanterman will be discussing recent high-profile cybercrime events, including website breaches impacting a variety of organizations and sectors. Mark will discuss particularly dangerous types of threats that might affect individuals involving the Dark Web, the Internet of Things, phishing, and Wi-Fi attacks.

Presented by: Mark Lanterman • Chief Technology Officer, Computer Forensic Services

Topics: Information Security
1:00 - 1:50 PM

What Does the Future Hold for Teleworking?

  Presented by INTERFACE Advisory Council

With the current pandemic, companies have mobilized to enable employees to work from home. IT departments took on this task in March of 2020. Many security and compliance challenges have been dealt with, but some remain.

Join the INTERFACE- Advisory Council for a look at what lies ahead with remote working. How are you adjusting your security procedures? Do you know if your end-users will return to the office? The dreaded elephant in the room will be addressed as well – BUDGETS! What do you need? What is expected of your IT staff? You will get tips on what has worked and what still is a challenge in keeping your users active and ensuring your business is fully operational.

Also, we will address long term items when it comes to in person working for different industries. How much of a shift in business will we see? We will discuss how IT departments will be involved in decision making and execution of policies.

Panelists:
Raul Carolus • Sr. System Programmer, Mason City Clinic
Nathan Pralle • Manager of Information Technology, Cambrex
Gene Schaff • Director of Information Technology, Tiller Corporation
John Schroeder • Director of IT Governance, Risk, and Compliance, Integrated DNA Technologies

Topics: Strategic Management
2:00 - 2:50 PM

How to Manage and Simplify Your IT While Lowering Your TCO for Government

  Presented by Nutanix

As Government leaders pivot to meet the unique challenges of an extraordinary 2020, a new normal is emerging: organizations are increasingly tasking IT to find and deliver rapid new business value through increased efficiency, enhanced automation, accelerated time to market, sharp innovation, and rock-solid cost savings.

For these organizations, it’s time to reach a new economic advantage. Learn how you can save your valuable budget, time, and manpower and redistribute resources toward more high-value initiatives. After all, your infrastructure should deliver returns—not add complexity and costs over time.

Topics: Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery
Riaz YusuffRiaz YusuffChief Information Officer, OHR, University of Minnesota
3:00 - 3:50 PM

It’s Time to Reboot!

  Presented by Riaz Yusuff • Chief Information Officer, OHR, University of Minnesota

The changing landscape in IT warrants a different approach on a number of issues. The IT landscape was already changing rapidly pre-COVID-19. But the pandemic has necessitated the need for flexible & robust systems in place, secure remote access to systems, creative policies and procedures in recruiting & retaining IT talent, right implementation methodology between waterfall, agile and dev-ops, and changes in many other aspects in IT. This keynote will leave you with several thought-provoking ideas and questions for consideration to 10X the output of your IT teams.

Riaz Yusuff is a Chief Information Officer for the Office of Human Resources at the University of Minnesota. He has 20 years of experience in Information Technology starting from a developer and later in various leadership roles. Riaz specializes in optimizing IT spend for large organizations.

Riaz regularly presents various topics on IT leadership at conferences, and he has been featured on several leadership panels. Riaz has earned his MBA and MS IT degrees, and has earned several certifications including PMP. His book “The 6-Foot Distance in IT: How to Cope with Fast Changing IT Landscape Post Pandemic. A Guide for Senior IT Leaders” is coming to Amazon this spring.

Topics: Strategic Management
  • Sessions
9:00 - 9:50 AM

How to Manage and Simplify Your IT While Lowering Your TCO for Government

  Presented by Nutanix

As Government leaders pivot to meet the unique challenges of an extraordinary 2020, a new normal is emerging: organizations are increasingly tasking IT to find and deliver rapid new business value through increased efficiency, enhanced automation, accelerated time to market, sharp innovation, and rock-solid cost savings.

For these organizations, it’s time to reach a new economic advantage. Learn how you can save your valuable budget, time, and manpower and redistribute resources toward more high-value initiatives. After all, your infrastructure should deliver returns—not add complexity and costs over time.

Topics: Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery
10:00 - 10:50 AM

Security Operations Center: Build Your Own or SOCaaS

  Presented by High Point Networks

Learn how Security Operations as a Service (SOCaaS) may be a good option for your business. In this session, we will compare and contrast many non-product specific aspects of SOCaaS and traditional Security Information and Events Management (SIEM’s) systems using first- hand real-world examples; the good, bad, and ugly. The purpose of this presentation is to equip the audience with enough knowledge so they can make a more informed decision regarding a traditional SIEM/SOC approach, or SOCaaS approach, when building a Security Operations Center. Presenter Dean Sheley recently lead an initiative to build a Central Security Operations Center for a statewide multi-university educational system while CISO for that state-wide university system.

Topics: Information Security
11:00 - 11:50 AM

Unified Endpoint Management

  Presented by Quest Software

This presentation highlights the reasons and need for Unified Endpoint Management in your business strategy. This presentation’s sole purpose is to educate C-level and system administrators of the need for UEM as well as what aspects are important. One of the problems with endpoint management today is the proliferation of endpoints. During this global health crisis especially, we are seeing a large work-from-home movement in businesses all over the world. In order to combat this issue, you must have an endpoint management strategy that works not only on the network but off of it as well.

Topics: Infrastructure, Strategic Management
1:00 - 1:50 PM

You Are No Longer Forgotten: The Small Business Security Challenge

  Presented by Chris Roberts • Hillbilly Hit Squad

Most of the security industry is chasing “around” 31,000 larger enterprise sized companies for their business. The list is well known, circulated and targets are on the backs of ALL the C-Suite, most of the technical folks and the MSP/VARS that support them. The Security industry circles them like packs of hyena or vultures waiting for one of them to fall, get breached, or for a vendor to be thrown out… pouncing on the fresh kill with glee…

Meanwhile, you’re sitting there getting slaughtered by every adversary known to mankind because you ARE the forgotten, you’re too small for the multi-billion $$ cyber companies whom IF they decide to deal with you will flood you with MSA’s, SOW’s and NDA’s that would take a week’s worth of lawyer time JUST to understand, let alone realize that they’re not accountable for anything, unlikely to want to support you and in all honestly you’ll get a 1-800-YOU-AREN’T-SPECIAL number as your sole source of support.

We’re going to address the current situation, the state of play, and give you some thoughts, suggestions, ideas AND plans. We’ll provide resources on HOW to evaluate, where to look, what to do AND importantly we’ll do it because it’s what we’re doing. We live, breath and deal with this daily. We’ve sat in the meetings when the large cybersecurity companies state, “we’re done dealing with the SMB market” and we’ve got the battle scars from dealing with those subsequent consequences.

Topics: Information Security
2:00 - 2:50 PM

Stop Ransomware for Good: Extending Zero Trust from Endpoint to Enterprise Network

  Presented by Airgap Networks

Nearly 70% of the ransomware attacks start from the compromise of a single endpoint followed by lateral movement. This is what turns an attack on a single endpoint into a huge breach. In this talk, Ritesh Agrawal, CEO and Founder of Airgap Networks, will discuss how ransomware cripples your organization and various mitigation techniques to help better protect your organization against the ransomware menace. This session will cover some of the following topics:

  • Ransomware propagation protection via Zero Trust Isolation (Identity-based segmentation)
  • Instant remediation via Ransomware Kill Switch
Topics: Information Security

Advisory Council

HOW TO BE AN ADVISOR

Advisor-approved content is the foundation upon which INTERFACE was developed. Each conference is guided by an Advisory Council of IT executives and senior managers. Advisor members represent both private and public sector organizations. The council contributes its insight into proposed educational topics and recommends local exhibitors and associations for participation.

EXPAND TO VIEW LIST

Roni Argetsinger
Director, Information Technology
Iowa Association of School Boards

Jon Brantner
Director Of Information Technology
Earl May Seed & Nursery

Raul Carolus
Sr. System Programmer
Mason City Clinic

Sheri Elston
Supervisor, Access Management
State of Minnesota

Kim Evers
Manager, Information Technology
Meyer Borgman Johnson

Joel Heric
Information Technology Manager
Edgerton Contractors

Ted Hughes
Chief Information Technology Officer
American Equity Investment Life Ins

Mike Kraft
Manager, IT Security
Vermeer Corporation

Mark Lanterman
Chief Technology Officer
Computer Forensic Service

Laly Larson
Risk Mitigation Security Manager
Members Cooperative Credit Union

Johan Lucas
Vice President
US Bank

Emily Marier
Director, IT Infrastructure
Slumberland Furniture

Chris Miller
Regional Manager Information Security
HealthEast Care Systems

Matt Ode
Executive Vice President & CIO
Thrifty White Pharmacy

TR Piller
Information Security Officer
ARKRAY

Nathan Pralle
Manager, Information Technology
Cambrex

Gene Schaff
Director, Information Technology
Tiller Corporation

John Schroeder
Director of IT Governance, Risk, and Compliance
Integrated DNA Technologies

Ryan Sinnwell
Manager, Infrastructure
The Weitz Group

Paul Skavnak
Information Security Manager
Edmentum Inc

Ted Wallerstedt
VP, IT Audit Manager
US Bank

Lee Weers
Director, IT Infrastructure
Central College

Brian White
CIO & Sr VP, Information Services
Hiway Federal Credit Union

Mark Wiseley
Chief Information Officer
Palmer College of Chiropractic

Sponsors

HOW TO BE A SPONSOR

Participating exhibitors at INTERFACE achieve a greater return on their investment from this series of IT events than any other face-to-face medium available today. This success is achieved through a time-efficient and cost-effective presence for a pre-qualified audience. This simple formula leads to higher levels of business development opportunity at each event.

GOLD SPONSORS

Nutanix

Nutanix

Nutanix
Nutanix makes IT infrastructure invisible with an enterprise cloud platform that delivers the agility and economics of the public cloud, without sacrificing the security and control of on-premises infrastructure.
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SILVER SPONSORS

Airgap

Airgap

Airgap
Airgap's Agentless Zero Trust Isolation™ platform is the best defense against ransomware propagation. Put an end to threat propagation and protect your infrastructure - in minutes, not months.
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Darktrace

Darktrace

Darktrace
Darktrace is a leading cybersecurity AI company and the creator of Autonomous Response technology. It provides a comprehensive cyber defense to over 5,500 organizations, protecting the cloud, email, IoT, traditional networks, endpoints, and industrial systems.
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High Point Networks

High Point Networks

High Point Networks
High Point Networks is a leading provider of information technology solutions in both SMB and enterprise-level markets, servicing customers from coast to coast.
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Malwarebytes

Malwarebytes

Malwarebytes
Malwarebytes protects workplace productivity. We secure all your endpoints so employees can connect confidently, from anywhere. We combine analytics-driven, multi-layer threat protection and industry-leading incident response to both simplify and strengthen overall cybersecurity. You and your team stay up and running, so you can remain focused on driving your business.
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Quest Software

Quest Software

Quest Software
At Quest, we solve complex problems with simple solutions. Our philosophy is focused on great products, great service and being simple to do business with. We deliver technology that eliminates the need to choose between efficiency and effectiveness.
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Tenable

Tenable

Tenable
Tenable, Inc., is the Cyber Exposure company. Over 30,000 organizations around the globe rely on Tenable to understand and reduce cyber risk.
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BRONZE SPONSORS

Qumulo

Qumulo

Qumulo
Qumulo, the leader in data-aware scale-out NAS, helps CIOs and storage administrators store, manage and curate enormous numbers of digital assets.
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Veeam

Veeam

Veeam
Veeam is the global leader in Intelligent Data Management for the Hyper-Available Enterprise. Veeam Hyper-Availability Platform is the most complete solution to help customers on the journey to automating data management.
Visit Website

EXHIBITORS & ASSOCIATIONS

CSA Minnesota

CSA Minnesota

CSA Minnesota
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is a non-profit with a mission to promote best practices for providing security assurance within Cloud Computing, and to provide education on the uses of Cloud Computing to help secure all other forms of computing.
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HDI Minnesota

HDI Minnesota

HDI Minnesota
HDI is the professional association and certification body for the technical service and support industry. Facilitating collaboration and networking, HDI hosts acclaimed conferences and events, and produces renowned publications and research.
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InfraGard Iowa

InfraGard Iowa

InfraGard Iowa
InfraGard is an association of persons who represent businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies, and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the U.S.
Visit Website
ISC2 Twin Cities

ISC2 Twin Cities

ISC2 Twin Cities
The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium is a non-profit organization which specializes in information security education and certifications. It has been described as "world's largest IT security organization.
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ISSA Minnesota

ISSA Minnesota

ISSA Minnesota
The primary goal of the Information Systems Security Association, Inc. (ISSA) is to promote management practices that will ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of organizational information resources.
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OWASP Minneapolis St. Paul

OWASP Minneapolis St. Paul

OWASP Minneapolis St. Paul
The OWASP Foundation came online on December 1st 2001 it was established as a not-for-profit charitable organization in the United States on April 21, 2004 to ensure the ongoing availability and support for our work at OWASP.
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Technology Association of Iowa

Technology Association of Iowa

Technology Association of Iowa
TAI's members work together to support the industry and advance Iowa's reputation as a technology state. The organization is a collection of technology leaders who have come together as Iowa’s statewide voice for technology.
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Interested in becoming part of our next Minnesota Iowa event?

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