Billington CyberSecurity to Host 1st State and Local Cyber Summit in Wake of Serious Cyber Attacks on State and Local Governments

The inaugural Billington State and Local CyberSecurity Summit will be held on March 19-20, 2024 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC as well as virtually. The two-day summit will convene the senior-most cyber leaders who will discuss cybersecurity issues and solutions for government entities at the state and local level.

"Keeping our nation safe from cyber criminals also means keeping state and local governments safe from these bad actors," explained Thomas K. Billington, CEO and Founder, Billington CyberSecurity, a leading cyber education company for executives founded in 2010. "With the increased attacks on our infrastructure, this new conference explores ways to protect our localities as well as the cyber issues they grapple with on a daily basis."

State and local governments and the critical infrastructure they support are facing significant cyber-attacks. In the last year, the state of Illinois, the city of Dallas, and the Los Angeles Unified School District have experienced cyber-attacks that impacted their day-to-day operations over multiple weeks. Yet these same governments are often massively under-resourced to protect themselves.

Government officials, tech leaders, and academia will be participating in Billington's two-day summit and sharing ways to enhance the cybersecurity of the states, counties, cities, and municipalities that comprise the U.S. and the critical infrastructure sectors. More than 30 cyber leaders will be speaking, including:

• Vitaliy Panych, CISO, State of California
• Nancy Rainosek, State Chief Information Security Officer, Texas Department of Information Resources
• Colin Ahern, Chief Cyber Officer, State of New York
• Chris DeRusha, Federal CISO, OMB (invited pending agency approval)
• Katie Savage, Secretary, CIO, Maryland Department of IT
• Steven Hernandez, CISO, Department of Education
• William Zielinksi, CIO, City of Dallas
• Bess Mitchell, Chief, Grant Operations, DHS
• Nishant Shah, Senior Advisor for Responsible AI, State of Maryland
• Josiah Raiche, Director of Artificial Intelligence, State of Vermont

The summit takes place at the National Press Club at 529 14th St NW, Washington, DC. To accommodate attendees from various states, the summit will also be offered virtually. Credentialed working media are invited to cover in person or online. All sessions are open to the press except the workshops that precede the event on March 19 and the roundtables at lunch on March 20. Press interested in covering and other attendees should register at: https://whova.com/portal/registration/ssle_202403/. Tickets range in price depending on type of business.

Attendees can receive continuing education credit from CompTIA and (ISC)2. Presented by a variety of sponsors, led by: CISCO, Amazon Web Services, NightDragon, Carahsoft Technology Corp., Anomali, CompTIA, Presidio, and Sailpoint.

| The full agenda is listed here. |