SHARE Will Overstreet John McNeely

By Ali James of the Knoxville News Sentinel

The first EDGE2016 Security Conference will be presented by Sword & Shield Enterprise Security Inc. Oct. 18-19 at the Crowne Plaza.

"This is something that we have wanted to do for a long time now and we saw a great opportunity to get the security conference going," said John McNeely, president and CEO of Sword & Shield Enterprise Security. "This is our inaugural year and we are committed to making this an annual event."

Sword & Shield Enterprise is a national information security company that helps businesses across the country with various information and data security and in dealing with risk and compliance issues.

Years ago, agencies and organizations such as the FBI, the University of Tennessee and the TVA had started a cyber security summit in Knoxville, according to McNeely. "It had a good reception and turnout and there was a lot of value in that," he said. "However, they have been unable to do that conference and we have gone a few years without a good quality cyber conference. It was an opportunity to step in.

"Our theme is real security challenges and real solutions," said McNeely. "A lot of the time at security conferences we talk about the threats and risks and the bad things that can happen and not enough time talking about real solutions and actions they can take away."

McNeely said that sometimes organizations underestimate threats such as Ransomware (a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid). "It is a real problem and we've seen a tremendous increase in attacks and the range of Ransomware," he said. "Although we think that everybody knows about it, businesses underestimate the very real threat and it's very pervasive. We have seen cases where Ransomware has locked up critical files and they can no longer execute their business."

The two-day event will feature 18 guest speakers that are IT experts in government agencies as well as from health care, retail, legal, banking and finance and manufacturing industries.

"Some of these people have dealt with real challenges with business security and they're sharing their experiences," said McNeely of the lineup. "I think what we put together is a very good mix of industry leaders."

The keynote speakers will be Theresa Payton, former White House CIO, cybersecurity authority and expert on identity theft and the Internet of Things (IoT); and Kevin Poulsen, a former hacker once wanted by the FBI turned cyber security expert and currently the editor at Wired magazine.

Will Overstreet, former University of Tennessee defensive end and Atlanta Falcons linebacker, will be the master of ceremonies. After Overstreet retired from football, he returned to the University of Tennessee to earn his MBA in finance and has gone on to patent his first invention and start his own company.

"I've gotten to know him; he is a very astute business man and entrepreneur," said McNeely. "He is very well-versed in the topic of cyber risk threat. It was a great opportunity for somebody like Will to emcee, to help keep things flowing and moving."

"All businesses need to be thinking about and focusing on the steps that they can take to make themselves more secure," said Overstreet in a media release. "This conference will not only give every attendee the scouting report on how hackers are trying to attack their business, but also provide them with practical ways in which they can implement at their own company. The goal is to increase every company's ability to sack the hack before the criminals score."

Just some of the speakers will include: Tim Flowers a Trial Attorney in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the United States Department of Justice. Flowers will discuss relevant provisions of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act ("CISA"), how companies can work with law enforcement after experiencing a suspected intrusion, and the department's use of its prosecutorial powers to bring network intruders to justice.

Graham Holms, director of advanced security initiatives group at Cisco, will be discussing industry perspectives on current trends in attack evolution on network devices and cloud systems.

Betsy Woudenberg is a former U.S. Intelligence officer with experience in cyber operations and telecommunications and is the CEO/founder of IntelligenceArts. Woudenberg will discuss the multiple simultaneous outages in a Ukraine electric grid last December, the signs that it was a hostile Russian cyberattack and whether a similar attack could happen here in the U.S.

Local speakers will include Justin Bornhoeft, information technology business manager at Cellular Sales, who will talk about end-to-end encryption (#2EE) point-to-point encryption (P2PE) to shrink consumer credit card exposure.

Joshua Eldridge, Scripps Networks Interactive, director, data science, will share their success story of migrating the Audience Data Warehouse to the cloud.

Chris McCarty, Lewis Thomason, IP attorney & shareholder, will talk about identifying and minimizing the associated liabilities of a data breach — and when/how to notify customers.

There will be general and breakout sessions. To register, visit https://edgesecurityconference.com/.