Closing Keynote Panel: Cybersecurity: Increasing Threats, Growing Needs

Global reliance on digital connectivity has accelerated, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as trends towards more remote work, ecommerce, and online access to services from education to healthcare and entertainment increased sharply. Also, digitization and digital connectivity rose with the growth of the Internet of Things and became extensively incorporated into nearly every industry, including transportation, finance, and manufacturing. Meanwhile, varied bad actors, both criminal and state-based/sponsored, are developing increasingly sophisticated methods to exploit vulnerabilities in our digital connectivity for financial gain. Their methods include hacking, “phishing” and ransomware attacks to gain access to sensitive information, such as business and personal financial information and intellectual property, or disable critical infrastructure (e.g., financial networks and energy grids).

Consequently, cybersecurity has developed critical importance, and the need for effective and appropriate cybersecurity solutions has become pervasive for all, such as large and small businesses, governments, entrepreneurs and even individuals. In response, innovation in cybersecurity continues to expand its reach within a wide spectrum of industries, becoming embedded into applications, improving identity management, and producing more effective threat intelligence solutions. This keynote panel discusses the latest developments in cybersecurity; appropriate defensive steps for IT protection; solutions to maintain cybersecurity; and how innovative companies continue to produce tools to protect emerging technologies from exploits of potential vulnerabilities.

MODERATOR & PANELIST:

Brian Park
Managing Partner, SparkLabs Cyber+Blockchain
Brian is a startup evangelist, advisor, and angel investor. He is also the Managing Partner at the SparkLabs Cyber+Blockchain (Formerly AOL Fishbowl Labs), which is the premiere startup accelerator in the Washington DC area and he has helped raised more than $150M in funding for their portfolio companies (MHelpDesk, ThreatQuotient, Xmode, Urgent.ly, Curator, Airside Mobile). He is the DC Chapter Director of Startup Grind, which is one of the largest hi-tech startup communities in the world with over 2,000,000 startup entrepreneurs in 600 cities. Read full profile…

PANELIST:

Dr. Hans Mumm
Senior Intelligence Officer and Cybersecurity Professional
Dr. Mumm has spent a combined twenty-eight years in government and contractor service building teams to address hard problems in the areas of national security, homeland security, and advanced technologies. He was the Division Chief for Cyber Security at the Office of The Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) programming and executing a budget of over $140M. Subsequently, he accepted a Branch Chief position with the CIA and built a unique set of continuous monitoring capabilities in support of the ICD503 Risk Management Framework. Read full profile…

Chris Shank
Verizon National Director, Small Business Innovation
Chris has 20+ years of experience as a Verizon Sales and Operations Leader in consumer and business products, enterprise solutions, iOT deployments, project management and customer service. He brings strong financial acumen, cross-unit collaboration and culture development to his leadership roles. Read full profile…

Dr. Merrick S. Watchorn, DMIST, QIS, CEL, CPCI, CECI, CCIP, CCII, CSMIE, SMIA, CTFI,
Program Chair for the Quantum Security Alliance and CEO, The Watchorn Innovation Group, Inc.
Dr. Merrick S. Watchorn, DMIST, QIS is the Program Chair for the Quantum Security Alliance (QSA) and his current research areas include Quantum Information Systems (QIS), High Performance Computer (HPC), Cloud Computing (CC), Cybersecurity concepts, supply chain and open source intelligence technologies. Read full profile…