Improving cybersecurity is focus of three upcoming conferences

Ask FBI special agent Byron Franz how to fight job loss and lack of competitiveness, and he’s got an immediate answer: improve cybersecurity.

Wisconsin has a rich landscape of targets for cyber criminals, including defense contractors, makers of high-tech industrial equipment and others, said Franz, who is strategic partnership coordinator for the FBI’s Milwaukee division.

“There’s a huge amount of industrial might here, and cyber eyes are looking at us,” Franz said.

Franz will be speaking this month at two cybersecurity conferences: Cosentry’s Security Summit Wisconsin 2015 on Wednesday at the Wisconsin Center in downtown Milwaukee, and the state’s Cyber Security Summiton Oct. 28 at Marquette University.

A third event, the WTN Media Fusion Executive Summit on Nov. 9 in Madison, will focus on the cyber-risk landscape.

Cybersecurity is becoming a huge topic, driven by observations like those of Ted Koppel, whose book called”Lights Out” details the vulnerability of America’s power grid to a major cyber attack, said David Cagigal, chief information officer for the State of Wisconsin and an organizer of the state cybersecurity conference.

“It’s transcending a lot of other things we’re normally concerned about,” Cagigal said.

Cagigal said there are four general types of cyber attacks: Participants in social actions like Ferguson, Mo., attack government websites; criminals “phish” for email passwords, credit card numbers and other information; bad actors or nation states steal trade secrets, patents and other information; and, as Koppel portrays, attackers target power grids, railroads, water systems and other infrastructure areas.

The goal of all three conferences is to increase understanding of the threat and bring more people into the conversation about defending against it. For the full article click here

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