Appalachia Technologies Blog
T-Minus 6 Days Until Zero Trust World 2023
As I’m sitting in my office looking at the wintry precipitation fall, it makes me long for a warmer climate. Well, I happen to be in luck, as next week I will be attending the Zero Trust World Conference, presented by ThreatLocker; which takes place in sunny and warm Orlando, Florida. In the midst of packing, making lists of things to take along, and making sure I’m TSA compliant, I have had my ear to the wire about the events being announced for the conference. Here is a preview of what is to come!
Zero Trust World promises to be a star-studded event (really, there is a big name scheduled for the final presentation and I am most excited! More on that later!) and I am fired up for it. The entire event is centered on the security principle of “zero trust”, which is meant to protect systems from a different security approach. Zero trust uses implicit deny rules to prevent actions from taking place on a device or network unless it is specifically allowed by the administrator. What this does is it takes many tools out of the attacker’s arsenal! They can’t attack if their tools won’t run!
Day one of the conference is February 1st and will consist of a half day of presentations by Danny Jenkins, the CEO of ThreatLocker, and Bob Arno, Criminologist and keynote speaker. Bob Arno will be speaking about “The Threats You Know and the Ones You Don’t See Coming”. The second half of the day is filled with break out sessions that are centered not only on the importance and capabilities of zero trust, but also live hacking demonstrations to show the attendee’s what can happen in an unprotected environment.
Day two consists of presentations on “What’s New” in the ThreatLocker platform and zero trust, provided by CEO Danny Jenkins and CTO Michael Jenkins. An exciting product announcement has also been teased! So, stay tuned for that great news! The second half of the day consists once again of hacking demonstrations and other breakout sessions about securing specific environments, such as Mac, Office 365, Active Directory, and so on.
The final day of the conference brings world renowned pilot and speaker Captain Sully Sullenberger. Captain Sullenberger is best known for the “Miracle on the Hudson” when he landed his passenger loaded US Airways flight 1549 safely into the Hudson River in New York City, after the plane lost both of its engines due to bird strikes. Captain Sullenberger will be speaking about “Leading Your Team to Success”. Being an avid aviation fanatic, I am truly inspired to be able to attend Captain Sullenberger’s presentation!
There is a quick preview of what is to come at the Zero Trust World Conference next week. Stay tuned for daily blogs on the events and happenings at the conference.
Stay safe (and secure) out there!
Curtis McPherson is a Lead SOC Analyst who also spends time performing penetration testing and ethical hacking, making him a true purple team member. Curtis graduated cum laude from Penn State University with a bachelor’s degree in Security and Risk Analysis, concentrating on cybersecurity and digital forensics. In his time at Penn State he participated in the Technology Club, which conducted open sourced intelligence (OSINT) investigations into missing person’s cases, using social media and the internet to find clues to their disappearance. Curtis is married with two cats and a bouncy bearded collie named Laddie. In his spare time Curtis is an avid fiction writer, Civil War historian, and a tried and true lover of all things related to airplanes and aviation.
