Cyberattacks have grown exponentially in North Carolina and our nation in recent years.

To help local companies and other organizations combat these threats, UNCW’s Center for Cyber Defense Education is convening a panel on August 20 so business and community leaders know the right questions to ask their technology teams. 

The panel will also help IT professionals gain internal support to better protect operations.

Click here to register for this free community event. 

Speakers at the event include representatives from local, state and federal organizations. 

Here’s the panel:
• Kim D’Arruda, CIPP/US - North Carolina’s Special Deputy Attorney General over cybercrime & information privacy
• Michael Nauert, FBI Special Agent for cybercrime and intrusion investigations
• Dr. Ulku Clark, UNCW’s Director of the Center for Cyber Defense Education
• William Wetherill, UNCW’s Chief Information Security Officer
• Rob Duggan, CPA, CISA, CISSP - Director of Technology Risk Advisory Services at Earney & Company
• Peter McClelland, Privacy, Data Security, and Technology Attorney at Ward and Smith 

McAfee reported a 630 percent increase in attacks on cloud providers during the first third of 2020 as America shifted to remote work during the start of Covid; attack numbers on hosted applications and service providers have continued to rise since then. Local network attacks are also growing due to campaigns that find and infiltrate local on-premise networks with a combination of automated phishing and swarms of recruited “social engineers.”

Contrary to popular belief, cyberattacks impact small businesses as well as large organizations. 

“The threats are serious and they are increasing,” said Anne Neuberger of the National Security Council following the Colonial Pipeline attack. “The private sector has a critical responsibility to protect against these threats. All organizations must recognize that no company is safe from being targeted by ransomware, regardless of size and location.”

Speakers on the panel at UNCW will focus heavily on two areas:
• Critical controls to best ensure ransomware or hacking attacks are not successful and do not result in breach or impact to operations
• Controls to ensure resilience in the event a successful attack occurs directly on your organization or on a key technology vendor  

Attendees will better understand how to avoid business interruption, damaging trust and remediation costs as well as make sure controls are in place and effective. 

We encourage both executive leaders and IT leaders to join us for an engaging and insightful discussion with valuable take-aways that will help protect operations and information confidentiality, integrity and availability.

Rob Duggan, CPA, CIA, CISA, CHC, CISSP leads Technology Risk Advisory Services for Earney & Company. He is a graduate of NC State and has over 20 years of information security and privacy experience. Rob has developed the information security audit function for top firms and Fortune 1000 companies, and has worked in over 25 countries during his career. Rob served national healthcare organizations as Internal Audit and Compliance Officer for 7 years prior to returning to Coastal Carolina to build a practice in Wilmington in 2019. Rob most enjoys helping organizations stay protected with cybersecurity as well as business process improvement work. Rob is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor, Certified Information Systems Auditor, Certified Information Systems Security Professional, and holds a Certificate in Healthcare Compliance. Rob is a frequent speaker on cybersecurity nationally & within the Wilmington professional community and serves on the Board of Advisors for UNCW’s Center for Cyber Defense Education.