Archives: Seminar

[1 CPE] Data Resilience in the Age of Attack: Protect What Matters

  Presented by Landra Pierce, Product Strategy Technologist • Veeam

Cyberattacks are no longer a distant threat; they are a reality every IT team must be prepared for. When an attack occurs, your data becomes both the primary target and the key to recovery. Many organizations still rely on backup strategies that are designed for hardware failures or accidental deletions, rather than today’s threats, like ransomware, insider risk, and automated attacks. This disconnect creates vulnerabilities, especially when backups become an overlooked entry point in your security strategy. In this session, we will address these challenges to help you better protect your organization.

This session is ideal for IT professionals who want greater confidence in safeguarding their data and peace of mind. We will examine the most common oversights that leave organizations, including those in government, education, healthcare, and other sectors, exposed to cyberthreats. You’ll discover how teams are advancing beyond basic backup to adopt a cyber-ready approach, including topics like immutability, threat awareness, rapid recovery, and intelligent automation.

Our focus will be practical and grounded in real-world scenarios, and what truly works when pressure is high and time is limited. Because when every minute counts and trust is at stake, data resilience means more than surviving an attack. It’s about protecting what matters most and emerging even stronger.

[1 CPE] Building and Retaining Your IT Staff: How to Find Success Amid Challenge

  Presented by INTERFACE Advisory Council

Identifying the correct candidates to fill IT vacancies is not as simple as posting a job description. This process is often time consuming, tedious, and challenging. An IT leader has a specific set of qualifications for a position, and the candidate pool may not align as hoped. How do you handle this dynamic?

Join the INTERFACE Wyoming Advisory Council for an open panel discussion about finding the right person for your job openings. We will discuss the challenges of limited candidate pools, geography, applicant expectations, and more. The Cheyenne and Fort Collins regions face a different IT hiring landscape than larger cities, but there are encouraging opportunities to build and grow a strong local technology workforce.

Our speakers will share their experiences in hiring and what changes they have made to improve their approach. They will cover strategies for retaining IT staff to ensure long-term cohesion and success. For the IT professional that is looking to advance, join this discussion to hear from hiring managers and gain insight to help you achieve your career goals. Bring your questions for this open discussion with your peers.

Panelists:

  • Jesse Ballard, Deputy CIO, University of Wyoming
  • Devrim Goktan, Sr Digital Cloud Solution Architect, Microsoft
  • Kristie Twitchell, Chief Information Officer, Trihydro
  • Timothy Walsh, Wyoming Cybersecurity State Coordinator, CISA

[1 CPE] Building Trust for What’s Next: PKI Modernization & Quantum Readiness

  Presented by Jared Mensinger, Sr Solutions Engineer  • DigiCert

Certificate lifetimes are shrinking. Browser requirements are evolving. Machine identities are growing exponentially. At the same time, organizations are beginning to plan for post-quantum cryptography while supporting new AI-driven systems that depend on trusted digital interactions.

These changes are transforming PKI from a traditional security function into the operational trust layer for modern business.

This session provides a practical roadmap for modernizing PKI, improving visibility into machine identities, automating certificate lifecycle management, and building crypto-agility for future cryptographic transitions. Attendees will leave with actionable steps to reduce operational risk today while preparing for post-quantum security and the next generation of digital trust.

[1 CPE] Better Together: Securing Identity in the AI Era

  Presented by CompuNet, with Microsoft & Palo Alto Networks

Explore how to protect user, machine, and AI identities in the modern workplace by implementing layered controls and complementary security processes. This session highlights how a flexible, multi-platform identity strategy—leveraging Microsoft Entra ID, Idera (formerly CyberArk), and related identity and access management technologies—can address evolving security challenges in the age of AI. Learn how Entra ID capabilities such as Conditional Access, identity governance, and workload identities integrate with privileged access management solutions from Idera to create a cohesive, defense-in-depth identity program. We’ll also touch on adjacent controls across endpoint, cloud, and network security to show how these technologies work together rather than in isolation.

[1 CPE] Three Wins to Chase, Three Disasters to Dodge

  Presented by Amy McLaughlin • Chief Information Officer, University of Wyoming

Amy McLaughlin cuts through the noise surrounding artificial intelligence and focuses on what leaders should actually be doing today. Drawing on real-world experience, she will walk through three high-impact ways AI is already delivering value and three common missteps that are creating unnecessary risk, wasted effort, and loss of trust. Rather than chasing tools or trends, Amy will talk about how to make better decisions: where to lean in, where to slow down, and how to approach AI as a leadership and governance challenge, not just a technology one.

Amy McLaughlin is the Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at the University of Wyoming, the state’s flagship and only public university, where she leads the technology organization responsible for enabling teaching, learning, research, and statewide outreach.

A nationally recognized technology and cybersecurity leader with more than two decades of experience, Amy is known for driving practical innovation, modernizing complex environments, and building high-performing teams across higher education and government. Her career spans leadership roles in enterprise IT, cybersecurity, and network services, including senior positions at Oregon State University and the State of Oregon, where she led large-scale transformation efforts, strengthened infrastructure resilience, and advanced security programs. Amy brings a strategic, people-centered approach to technology leadership, grounded in deep operational experience and a strong commitment to mission-driven outcomes.

[1 CPE] Proving Cyber Resilience: Measuring Outcomes, Not Effort

  Presented by Joe Nay, Solutions Architect • Horizon3.ai

Most security programs measure effort — not outcomes. Organizations patch thousands of vulnerabilities, deploy dozens of tools, and run annual tabletop exercises… but when an attacker shows up, none of that matters.

What matters is whether they can prove their defenses actually work.

In this talk, Horizon3.ai shares how leading organizations are using autonomous pentesting to see their environment through the attacker’s eyes — continuously, safely, and at scale. By shifting from assumptions to proof, they’ve learned to:

  • Prioritize what’s exploitable. Focus limited resources on the weaknesses that truly put the business at risk that are known to be abused by threat actors.
  • Quickly fix what matters. Close the loop from find → fix → verify and reduce your exploitable attack surface.
  • Reduce attacker dwell time. Use pentest results to precisely deploy honeyTokens to detect compromise early, and to continuously prove your EDR and SIEM are tuned and working as intended.

Cyber resilience isn’t about being perfect — it’s about getting better over time. And the only perspective that truly matters is the attacker’s.

Advisory Council Roundtables

  Presented by INTERFACE Advisory Council

Join us during the lunch hour for Advisory Council Roundtables, an interactive opportunity to connect with council members and peers on a variety of timely industry topics. Move freely between tables, share your perspective, and gather practical insights you can take back to your organization. These conversations are informal, high-value, and designed to spark ideas and connection.

Topics:

  • Data Protection in the Age of AI
  • Ensuring Security and Compliance with 3rd Parties
  • IT Staffing: Onboarding for Success
  • Get More Out of Your IT Spending
  • Managing Infosec for the Small/Medium Business
  • Security Approach in Public Sector
  • Security Awareness: What Methods Work to “Secure the Human”
  • Zero Trust Strategy: Challenges & Lessons Learned

[1 CPE] Beyond Cybersecurity: Assembling Resiliency for the Inevitable Breach

  Presented by BJ Deonarain, Global Quantum and Classic Cyber Security Director • Hitachi Vantara

The Imperative for Resiliency, 100% cyber security is unachievable; breaches are inevitable, where modern threats demand a shift from reactive defense to proactive resilience. Resilience requires mindset and culture change, not just new technology, while focus can sustain operations and limit damage when security fails.

Assembling the resiliency strategic pillars and actions:

  • Risk Assessment: continuous evaluation of assets and vulnerabilities
  • Incident Response: develop, test, and update comprehensive crisis plans
  • Employee Training: ongoing education to make staff the first line of defense
  • Systems Testing: regular audits, penetration tests, and vulnerability scans
  • Partnerships: collaborate with industry experts for knowledge sharing
  • Culture: embed resiliency throughout the organization at every level

BJ Deonarain is a globally focused cybersecurity executive responsible for driving cyber security and cyber resiliency strategy at Hitachi Vantara. With a career spanning technical innovation, client solutions, and cross-functional leadership, BJ combines deep technical expertise with a client-centric approach to mitigate risk and elevate organizational security postures.

[1 CPE] State of the Union: Annual Information Security Report

  Presented by Chad Spoden, Sr Information Security Consultant, Solution Architect Manager • FRSecure

The result of over 100 incident cases handled by the FRSecure response team in the last two years, Sr Information Security Consultant Chad Spoden will dive into the latest threats and response techniques you need to know—and what you can do to minimize the risk and impact of similar events. The breakdown will cover Business Email Compromise, Ransomware, and Internal Compromise. You can’t afford to miss it!

[1 CPE] From Vibe Coding to Agentic Engineering: Agile and DevOps in Enterprise AI Development

  Presented by Mike Douglas, SVP Digital Transformation • Lunavi

Enterprises everywhere are racing to incorporate AI into their development practices to improve time to market, create competitive advantages, and avoid being left behind. The tools make it easy to get started, but building mission-critical software with AI is a different challenge entirely. Human + AI development demands security, accountability, and rigorous quality controls that isn’t part of most AI development practices.

In this talk, I’ll show how Agentic Engineering built on a foundation of Agile and DevOps, provides a process for developing software at high speed while keeping humans in the loop, delivering value incrementally, and baking quality into every step through automated security and quality gates. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of modern AI development tools and processes, and how proven Agile and DevOps practices provide the critical human oversight that responsible AI development requires.