Ransomware, one of the most prevalent cybersecurity threats, has been making big news by crippling governmental organizations and large corporations with household names, but the story has started to change. Hackers have turned their low-effort but highly successful scams on minor municipalities and small business. Almost half of all breaches last year targeted small businesses.

Prevention is essential in helping organizations avoid having their data held hostage by ransomware attackers, but your organization, your team, and your network need to be prepared for post-breach possibilities. Ransomware infections rapidly spread laterally from host to host in an attempt to bring companies to their knees. This is why segmenting the network and containing the threat is critical. Doing so is easier than you think.

onShore Security has teamed up with OPAQ to present this talk on ransomware to teach you how to:

● Shut down ransomware attacks without blowing up your budget;
● Segment your network using software without the complexity and cost associated with VLANs, routers, switches, and a host of in-house security experts;
● Gain insight into how other organizations are gaining greater visibility and control over their network assets.

About our Speaker:

Tom Cross is a highly experienced and respected information security leader who oversees all technical elements of OPAQ and is responsible for communicating the technology strategy to partners, employees, and investors. He is the co-founder and former CTO of Drawbridge Networks, an information security company that developed a unique approach to network micro-segmentation, which enabled organizations to learn, detect, and automatically respond to internal attacks. Prior to founding Drawbridge, Tom was Director of Security Research at Lancope, where he led research into network anomaly detection. He also was Manager of the IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force Advanced Research team, which built state-of-the-art network intrusion prevention technologies. Tom is credited with discovering a number of critical security vulnerabilities in enterprise-class software and has written papers on collateral damage in cyber conflict, vulnerability disclosure ethics, security issues in Internet routers, securing wireless LANs, and protecting Wikipedia from vandalism. Tom holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Last week, onShore Security’s Caron Grantham attended GirlCon Chicago, which we were proud to sponsor. GirlCon Chicago “was a really engaging event for the teen students”, says Caron, after the event at Google Chicago. Students attending the event ate lunch with cybersecurity practitioners and their peers, encouraged to ask questions of the professionals in attendance. Caron met some students from her high school alma mater; Kenwood Academy College Prep, as well as students from Lindbloom, King College Prep, and Walter Payton College Prep. Caron engaged with the students and discussed their interest in computer science and cybersecurity.

After lunch, Caron stayed for keynote speaker Ann Yeung.  Ann Yeung is Vice President of Technology at Northwestern Mutual, where she currently heads software engineering teams in imagining and building the next generation digital solutions to enable 7000+ financial advisors; helping to create financial security for Americans.  Ann spoke about her experiences in college and how she went from changing her major at UIC from liberal arts to computer science & coding, although her male dean was not encouraging nor confident that she could succeed against her male peers who’d arrived at UIC with previous computer experiences. She then elaborated about the work she currently does.  Ms. Yeung expressed how she is still uncomfortable walking into a meeting and sometimes being the only woman in a room; as the banking/financial services industry still predominately employs men and there are few women working at the highest levels within the information technology (IT) space that supports the industry. The students, inspired by the keynote, asked great questions before they headed to afternoon workshops.

We’re looking forward to GirlCon Chicago in 2020 and many more events that will inspire our youth to consider studying cybersecurity and to help create more diversity in our field.