Registration open for National Cyber Summit at the VBC in September

HUNTSVILLE — With education, collaboration and innovation its core focus, registration is now open for the 13^th annual National Cyber Summit. The event, Sept. 21-22 at the Von Braun Center, is hosted by the North Alabama Chapter of the Information Systems Security Association (NAC-ISSA), Cyber Huntsville Corporation (CHC), Auburn University Research, and University of Alabama in Huntsville.

The summit is recognized as the nation’s most innovative cyber security-technology event because of its diverse focus areas, speakers, and accessibility. It offers educational, collaborative and workforce development opportunities for industry visionaries and community leaders.

“NCS connects senior cyber-tech leaders to those just starting in cyber-tech fields,” said National Cyber Summit Director Judy Darwin. “This is critical to building a stronger more resilient cyber workforce in government, industry and academia to ensure we protect our national interest from all enemies foreign and domestic.”

With Huntsville now one of the nation’s largest technological hubs, the summit attracts  government and commercial participants. Attending are Department of Defense organizations, civilian agencies, and businesses in health care, automotive and energy, academia, genetic research and high technology.

Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said there is no better place to address cybersecurity than in Huntsville.

“This city is at the pinnacle of technology, and the National Cyber Summit brings together the best and brightest from our government, industry, and academic technical community,” he said.

The NCS agenda:

Training sessions run all day all four days Monday – Thursday, Sept. 19-22. The registration desk opens at 8 a.m., Sept. 19; however guests can begin pre-registering now by clicking here.

Sept. 20 – It’s not all meetings and seminars. There is music to get things going. The National Cyber Summit presents Summit Jam from 6:30 – 10 p.m. at the Mars Music Hall. Live music from Carly and the Crash and The Wanda Band begin at 7 p.m.

Sept. 21 – the VBC Exhibit Hall opens at 7 a.m. with a breakfast, followed by a keynote luncheon at 11:45. There are morning sessions on “Malware Autopsy: Russian Cyber Operations During the Invasion of Ukraine” with Dr. Wesley McGrew, senior cyber fellow at Martin Federal; “Protecting your Information from the Insider Threat” with Paul Quintel, founder/CEO of Sawblade Security Solutions; and “Cyber Deterrence by Denial: Theory & Practice” with Gentry Lane, CEO of ANOVA Intelligence.

After lunch, sessions include “Decrypting Crypto: Digital Assets and their increasing impact,” featuring Bryan Smith, cyber division section chief, Cyber Operations Section at FBI Headquarters; Kyle Armstrong of TRM Labs; Beth Bisbee, head of U.S. investigations with Chainalysis; and Eric Yingling with the FBI; “Innovations in Remote Academic Internships During the COVID-19 Pandemic” with Dr. Lori Sussman, assistant professor of Technology and Cybersecurity at the University of Southern Maine; “Emerging Red Team Tactics” featuring Sean Hopkins, IronNet Cybersecurity Red Team specialist; and “Level Up Your SOC: Guide for a Resilient Education Program” with Brandon DeVault, senior security author with Pluralsight.

At 6 p.m.,  the popular Poker Run Pub Crawl is back. Attendees visit five local establishments receive playing cards at each location to create their poker hand. At the end of the crawl, the players still with the group and holding the best hand will receive a prize. The admission is $15.

Sept. 22 – “Hacking the Brain” with George Bilbrey III, academy content developer at Hack The Box; and “Blockchain in the Federal Government” with Tom Plunkett, managing director of Digital Forensics and E-Discovery at ArcherHall, and adjunct professor of cyber security leadership at the University of San Diego.