Saint Leo Symposium To Help Businesses Protect Against Cyberattacks

ST. LEO, FL — Saint Leo University will host a data security symposium, "Securing the Digital Assets of Small Business," on Friday, Nov. 3 from 8:15 a.m. to noon at the university, 33701 County Road 52, St. Leo.

Presented by the College of Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Data Science (CARDS), this symposium is open to businesses and the public as well as students, faculty, staff and alumni.

Lunch will be provided at noon, and the cost for the symposium is $75.

This symposium is especially for small business owners and managers. It will help participants:

• Identify security standards and applicable guidelines;
• Identify, access, and manage cyber risk;
• Enable technical innovation and account for organizational differences;
• Provide guidance that is technology neutral; and,
• Assist in measuring the performance of implementing the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework.

In 2023, there has been a significant increase in cyberattacks on businesses of all sizes.

These range from phishing, spoofing, and ransomware to identity-based attacks that result from not always knowing who is behind the keyboard.

As it is critical for organizations to protect their data and resources from these attacks, this symposium will equip participants with the necessary tools to apply the NIST Cyber framework (NIST CSF), providing a comprehensive approach to protect a company’s infrastructure.

Guest speakers for the symposium include:

• Lawrence Wolfenden, retired FBI agent for cyber crimes, investigating cyber attacks by criminals, overseas adversaries, and terrorists;
• Angel Jones, retired director of cyber investigation, U.S. Office of Inspector General, Department of Energy, and co-founder and CEO of truFable, a SaaS cloud-native cybersecurity company;
• Steven Alt, instructor, computer science, Saint Leo University;
• Steve Carroll, chief information officer (CIO), Saint Leo University;
• Dr. Geondrell Jackson, assistant professor of computer science, Saint Leo University;
• Dr. Edward Santiago, assistant professor, computer science, Saint Leo University; and,
• Dr. Derek Mohammed, dean of the Saint Leo’s the College of Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Data Science.

Mohammed will welcome everyone and Wolfenden will discuss the importance of cybersecurity.

In addition to the symposium, Saint Leo University will host the fourth annual Capture the Flag
Competition. Teams from area colleges and universities compete for 10 cyber challenges, modeled after complex, real-life cybersecurity scenarios. First- and second-place teams will be
awarded cash and prizes.

"Securing the Digital Assets of Small Business" will take place in the Greenfelder-
Denlinger Boardrooms in the Student Community Center. Register for the symposium at is available here.