Registration and Morning Refreshments in the Exhibit Area

Opening Remarks

Jeff Clines, Chief Information Officer, Bureau of Information & Telecommunications, State of South Dakota

Miguel Penaranda, Chief Information Security Officer, Bureau of Information & Telecommunications, State of South Dakota

Keynote – Keep Your Head Out of the Cyber Sand: Using Superior Communications to Get the Job Done!

Risk can take on many forms and governments must understand how to accept it, mitigate it, or insure against it while not sticking their head in the sand to ignore it. How will you assess your cyber risks and balance them against your needs? How will you make the rational decisions needed to be successful? How will you navigate the road to recovery? This session will answer these questions with a focus on ideas that will help you engage your leaders with real-world examples.

Bryce Austin, CEO, TCE Strategy

Networking Break in the Exhibit Area

Concurrent Sessions

Risk Management: Unleashing the Power of Secure Partnerships

In today’s interconnected environments, it’s essential to secure your own environment and that of your vendors. How do you vet industry partners regarding their cybersecurity protocols? How do you negotiate ongoing visibility and monitor vendor security, so it doesn’t lag? Join our expert panel as we explore practical strategies for managing vendor cyber risk. From leveraging existing frameworks to negotiating contract terms, you’ll leave with actionable insights to ensure your organization's secure and resilient future.

Moderator: Phil Bertolini, Senior Vice President, Government Technology

Mark Wixon, Agency and Application Director, Bureau of Information & Technology, State of South Dakota

Patrick Wright, Chief Information Security and Privacy Officer, State of Nebraska

Mastering Identity Management: Strategies for a Secure Future

In an era of escalating cyber threats, effective identity management is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity. How do you reduce fraudulent accounts? How do you validate identities? Panelists will discuss zero trust, ID verification best practices, and leveraging data governance as an ally to strengthen your identity management plan.

Moderator: Gregory Dias, Director, Information Systems & Technology, Lawrence County

Harold Bruce, Enterprise Digital Transformation Manager, State of South Dakota

Brent Dowling, Technology Architect, Bureau of Information and Telecommunications

Cybersecurity Awareness Programs

Handing out consequences across your organization for falling short on security measures only causes disengagement. But how do you engage your teams, so they want to be part of the solution? How do you keep your end users involved? Let’s turn learning into adventure by gamifying security awareness. Speakers will share how to use microlearning as a tool and give recognition instead of blame. We’ll look at use cases and metrics on incident response time and near misses. Together we can build a resilient human firewall!

Moderator: Elijah Rodriguez, Chief IT Officer, South Dakota Legislature

Sherry Baker, GRC Analyst, Bureau of Information Telecommunications, State of South Dakota

Jim Edman, Cybersecurity Advisor, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency

Lunch

General Session – Engaging Business Stakeholders

Moderator: Jeff Clines, Chief Information Officer, State of South Dakota

Chris Gergen, Director of Cyber Operations, State of North Dakota

Patrick Wright, Chief Information Security and Privacy Officer, State of Nebraska

Short Break

Please proceed to the concurrent sessions.

Concurrent Sessions

AI and Security Risks – Mitigating Sophisticated Threats

As the world embraces AI for its transformative potential, we must also acknowledge its challenges. What new threats are cyber security teams defending against? Can AI governance help shield against bad actors? In this session, we will discuss how to use AI to defend against new threats and how to integrate pin tests with AI models in mind.

Moderator: Heather Perry, Deputy Chief Information Office, State of South Dakota

Jamie Fry, Network Administrator, Legislative Research Center, South Dakota Legislature

Katie Shuck, Lead Cyber Intelligence Analyst, South Dakota Fusion Center

Pat Wolberg, Information Technology Director, County of Brown

Threat Hunting

(Technical Session)

With cyber threats, your offense is your best defense. How can you stop threats before they happen and strengthen your cyber posture? This session will dive into practical use cases including log analysis and reverse engineering to help strengthen your defenses. You’ll learn to utilize proactive threat hunting to anticipate, detect, and neutralize potential breeches.

Moderator: Miguel Penaranda, Chief Information Security Officer, Bureau of Information & Telecommunications, State of South Dakota

Nicholas Penning, Threat Hunting, Cybersecurity Architect, Bureau of Information & Telecommunications - Security Operations Center, State of South Dakota

Networking Break in the Exhibit Area

General Session – Navigating Your Cyber Future: Next-Gen Threats, Strategies & Tech

The Center for Digital Government (CDG) works tirelessly to analyze the current and future state of cybersecurity. How will governments stay ahead of cyber-attackers? Are the emerging threats just too much? What are the new approaches to addressing cyber challenges? This session will tackle these issues by having the CDG present an update on key issues and trends facing government cybersecurity leaders today.

Phil Bertolini, Senior Vice President, Government Technology

Networking Reception in the Exhibit Area

Network with your colleagues and discuss technology solutions with the event exhibitors.

End of Conference

Conference times, agenda, and speakers are subject to change.