Midwest Cyber Alliance Summit

Pearl Technology recently sponsored the inaugural Midwest Cyber Alliance Summit, which was hosted by FBI Springfield and Peoria InfraGard. Designed to bring together the brightest minds across 84 counties within Central and Southern Illinois, the Summit highlighted the cyber threat landscape, insider risk, and incident response. It also focused heavily on the quantum and artificial intelligence landscape. The FBI Cyber Division’s new Operation Winter SHIELD initiative was also featured. The FBI Summit included an expert panel that addressed numerous questions by cybersecurity professionals. Pearl Technology’s Anthony Mini was a featured speaker and served on the panel of experts, while Dave Johnson moderated the discussion. As a result of the Summit, FBI Springfield will hold quarterly think-tank discussions with academia and the private sector. Both Peoria InfraGard and Pearl Technology will participate in these events. Right now, the plan is to make the Midwest Cyber Alliance Summit an annual conference, but it will not replace Pearl Technology’s Central Illinois Cyber event. Cybersecurity speakers from John Deere, Caterpillar, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Pearl Technology were featured in the Summit, which was packed with cybersecurity professionals from more than 100 organizations. Attendees represented U.S. critical infrastructure ranging from small to large enterprises. If you reside in the Central or Southern Illinois area and want to get involved, apply with the Peoria or Springfield InfraGard chapters.