[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.

[1 CPE] The Speed of Trust: Why Your AI Strategy is Only as Fast as Your Security Architecture

  Presented by Bradley Mitchell and Olivia Geesen, Prisma SASE Specialists • Palo Alto Networks

In the race for AI dominance, many businesses are hitting the brakes as security struggles to keep up. We’re stuck in a “Fragmentation Tax,” managing endless siloed tools, to protect against prompt injections, shadow AI, and data exfiltration.

Prisma SASE specialists, Bradley Mitchell and Olivia Geesen, will discuss how organizations can approach these challenges including the benefits of a holistic platform strategy.

[1 CPE] Global SASE, Local Advantage: Why Inspection Location Matters

  Presented by Blackfoot Communications & Cato Networks

Speakers: Eric Midtlyng, Director of Product Management, Blackfoot Communications and Michael MacLean, Channel Sales Engineer, Cato Networks

As organizations adopt Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architectures, many discover that security effectiveness depends not only on the platform itself, but also on where inspection occurs and how traffic reaches security services.

This session explores the architectural considerations that influence user experience, application performance, security visibility, and operational resiliency in modern SASE deployments. Attendees will learn how regional security presence, traffic localization and resilient connectivity can improve outcomes for distributed organizations.

Using real-world deployment examples, we will examine the role of localized security inspection, digital experience monitoring, and emerging AI-powered security capabilities. The session will conclude with demonstrations and practical guidance for evaluating SASE architectures that balance global reach with local performance and operational simplicity.

[1 CPE] Future-Ready Infrastructure: Enabling AI, Security, and Resilience

  Presented by Nutanix

As agencies evaluate generative AI, cybersecurity modernization, and digital services, infrastructure has become a strategic decision rather than simply an operational one. This session examines how public sector IT leaders are simplifying operations, increasing resiliency, and preparing their environments to support emerging AI workloads without sacrificing security or budget predictability. Attendees will leave with practical considerations for infrastructure modernization, virtualization strategy, and building a platform capable of supporting tomorrow’s government services.

[1 CPE] Cybersecurity and Compliance For 2026

  Presented by Structured

This session examines how organizations can align cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance programs with the realities of 2026. The presentation reviews current threat trends, executive accountability requirements, and the expanding impact of artificial intelligence on risk management. It then connects federal, state, and industry obligations, including NIST CSF 2.0, HIPAA, CJIS, PCI DSS 4.0, CMMC, and emerging privacy laws to practical security program design. Attendees will leave with a clear framework for building a complete security program that integrates governance, segmentation, risk management, Zero Trust principles, and penetration testing to reduce risk and support regulatory readiness.