Go Behind the Hacker Frontlines at Cyber Madness in Boston April 8

Criminal hackers might get most of the headlines, but there are plenty of “ethical” hackers helping companies and organizations spot and fix vulnerabilities in their cyber defenses.

On April 8, you can go behind the scenes of the hacker frontlines at Xconomy’s “Cyber Madness: Case Studies in Security,” an afternoon conference in Boston focused on how companies have solved security problems. In one session, HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos and Mapbox information security engineer Olivia Brundage will trace the path of a bug from discovery by ethical hackers to resolution of the vulnerability. They’ll also discuss the building blocks of companies’ successful bug bounty programs and explore some of the most common vulnerabilities these days.

The whole program will be jam-packed with interesting and practical takeaways about how cyber attacks are evolving, how defenders are responding, and what it all means for businesses and organizations across every sector. The event, which will be held at EY’s offices in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, will bring together security-tech founders, executives, and investors, as well as IT leaders from sectors such as finance, legal, and healthcare.

You can view the full agenda here, and grab your seat here while tickets last.

Here’s a sampling of what else is on tap at Cyber Madness:

—Xconomy Editor in Chief Greg Huang will set the scene in a conversation with Michael Daly, CTO of Cybersecurity & Special Missions at Raytheon. They’ll cover a range of topics, including prospects for a U.S. “cybersecurity moonshot” project as a means of addressing future threats.

Michael Figueroa, executive director of the Advanced Cyber Security Center (ACSC), will explore emerging security tools and tactics with Carbonite CEO Mohamad Ali, Pixm president and co-founder Arun K. Buduri, and Very Good Security CEO and co-founder Mahmoud Abdelkader.

Abdelkader’s Bay Area startup, which is backed by Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, is developing an interesting approach to protecting and working with sensitive data. Boston-based Carbonite has been in the data backup and security sector for more than a decade, and has enhanced its offerings in recent years through acquisitions, including this year’s $618 million acquisition of Webroot. Pixm, a Boston-area startup, is using computer vision technologies to quickly spot and react to phishing attacks.

Edna Conway, Cisco‘s chief security officer of the global value chain, will chat with Dust Identity CEO and co-founder Ophir Gaathon about supply chain security, including private and public sector efforts in the U.S. and Europe to manage risks in IT supply chains.

—In a chat with Xconomy senior editor Brian Dowling, American Superconductor CEO Daniel McGahn will share the remarkable story of how his company survived a corporate espionage plot by its largest customer, China-based Sinovel.

Greg Dracon of .406 Ventures will moderate a panel featuring the chief executives of three Boston-area cybersecurity firms: Sam King of Veracode, Corey Thomas of Rapid7, and Mariano Nunez of Onapsis. They will dig into the biggest trends impacting their cybersecurity businesses, which range from venture-backed startup (Onapsis) to publicly traded company (Rapid7) to privately held firm acquired for nearly $1 billion (Veracode).

We’ll see you on April 8!

Author: Jeff Bauter Engel

Jeff, a former Xconomy editor, joined Xconomy from The Milwaukee Business Journal, where he covered manufacturing and technology and wrote about companies including Johnson Controls, Harley-Davidson and MillerCoors. He previously worked as the business and healthcare reporter for the Marshfield News-Herald in central Wisconsin. He graduated from Marquette University with a bachelor degree in journalism and Spanish. At Marquette he was an award-winning reporter and editor with The Marquette Tribune, the student newspaper. During college he also was a reporter intern for the Muskegon Chronicle and Grand Rapids Press in west Michigan.