On this week’s podcast we are joined by Forcepoint’s Marketing Director Carolyn Ford who shares some behind the scenes insights on Forcepoint’s upcoming Cybersecurity Leadership Forum. This is Forcepoint’s annual event and Carolyn shares some of the agenda highlights, speakers and other surprises that will happen at the event on April 4, 2019. Additionally, Eric and Arika will be doing a special podcast recording from the event.

… and don’t forget to sign up for upcoming episode alerts!

How to Listen

Introducing Carolyn Ford

Arika: Hi and welcome back to, To The Point Cybersecurity, I'm your host Arika Pierce and I have Eric Trexler with us, as always. Hi, Eric.

Eric: Good afternoon, Arika.

Arika: Good afternoon. So, it's episode 21, wow, we are on a roll now.

Eric: I feel like we're adults at this point.

Arika: Yeah, we're adulting, #adulting.

Arika: So, today we have a guest, Carolyn Ford, from marketing at Forcepoint and we're going to talk about an upcoming event that Forcepoint is hosting for the cybersecurity industry called The Forcepoint Cybersecurity Leadership Forum, did I say it correctly, Carolyn?

Carolyn: You did.

Arika: Okay.

Eric: And it's a mouth full.

Arika: Yeah, it's a mouth full.

Carolyn: We just call it FCLF. We do acronyms for everything in government.

The Forcepoint Cybersecurity Leadership Forum

Arika: Right. It does have a hashtag right? It'll be #FCLF?

Carolyn: #FCLF

Arika: So Carolyn, tell us a little bit more about this event. I know this is something that Forcepoint has been doing for quite a few years. I actually had the opportunity to attend last year and really thought it was a great event. Tell us why you do it and what makes it different from other cybersecurity events.

Carolyn: Well, we've been doing this in some form or another for about ten years. The first one, believe it or not, I had Kevin Mandiant, you might recognize his name, Eric. He sat on my panel.

Eric: I do, I do.

Carolyn: It was all about insider threat and it was such a great event, but it was really small and we've just grown and grown and grown. We've found that there is so much going on in cyber and it affects us personally. It effects me, it affects you, and what government is doing in cyber affects us directly.

Promoting this event has been really easy because it is so important to the everyday person.

A chance to listen to industry leading experts

Eric: It's really a coming together of cyber professionals to have discussion. It's not a sales pitch. It's listening to industry leading experts, Carolyn would you not agree? On specific topics of interest to, primarily government, but anybody interested in cyber would be excited to hear it.

Carolyn: Yeah, 100% this is talking about what is going on in cyber, how it is affecting us personally. It's not about anybody's product. It's about what the problems are, what kinds of solutions we have around them, even right down to emerging talent. We're having a problem recruiting people and this is something that we'll be talking about.

Insider threats: walking upright and right through your doors

Eric: I'm excited about the Walking Upright and Right Through Your Doors, Mark Pelton, Arika, who we had on. You know I was loving that show. Walking Upright and Right Through Your Doors topic. I mean, think about that.

Arika: It's funny that you mention that because I asked Carolyn the other day, I'm like "What does that mean?" And I love that about this event, as well, it's not just all your typical, someone gets up and gives a presentation, you guys really have some great thought leaders. Talk to me about that, that session, again, its called Walking Upright and Right Through Your Doors. What does that have to do with cybersecurity?

Carolyn: This one is near and dear to my heart. I've been closely tied to insider threat for ten years and that's what this is about. When we think of insider threat, often, we think of these creepy, sneaky, dark corners, shadow people that are trying to do nefarious things. Destroy the company, destroy the world and there are a few of those. They are the insider threat, but I'm also the insider threat.

Eric: We know that.

Carolyn: Eric's also the insider threat.

Arika: Secret's out.

Carolyn: It's not just that nefarious, malicious person. There is the unintentional insider threat. There's the well-meaning insider threat, the guy that's just trying to get his job done so he downloads a whole bunch of stuff on a USB stick and takes it someplace it shouldn't be. That's where that title came from and that's what that's about.

Arika: Great.

Eric: I can't wait for that one.

Carolyn: It's going to be great, yeah.

A great mix of speakers

Arika: Also, I think what I liked about the conference when I was there last year, or the event I should say, is that you also had a great mix of speakers.

• Click here for a list of all speakers

Chris Krebs

You had a lot of government folks who spoke last year, and it looks like you have a great set that will be there this year including Chris Krebs. If I remember correctly, last year when he spoke, it was before CISA was created, but he had just been confirmed as Assistant Secretary, I think maybe the day before he was there.

Brian Krebs

Carolyn: We had him first. He got confirmed the night before, literally. What's even more exciting about having Chris back, is we're going to have him chat with Erica and with Brian Krebs. We've got our industry guy, our government guy talking about cybersecurity and how it affects us. It's going to be a fantastic session.

Eric: Hold on a second, you mean we're going to have one of the world's foremost cybersecurity professionals from a government perspective on the same stage as one of the world's most impressive cyber security journalists?

Arika: What are you going to ask them Eric? Give us some insight, have you started working on your questions yet?

Eric: I think I'm going to ask if they're brothers, first of all, or related. Imagine two people with the same last name that are so impressive in their fields in the same industry, on the stage. That's going to be pretty cool. I'm looking forward to that.

Dr. Ford

Carolyn: That one is a big highlight for me already. I'm also looking forward to Dr. Ford, who I am not related to, but I would totally claim him. He's going to be talking about rethinking trust. He's got some stuff out there, some articles out there, that are fascinating. It's going to be a great topic. You guys had him on the podcast earlier.

Eric: He's great and we had great feedback on the concept of trust and the way he explained it.

Arika: His approach is great, it really gets you thinking. I'm definitely excited to hear that session as well.

Assistant Secretary Karen Evans

Arika: The other person that jumps out to me, is you're going to have Assistant Secretary Karen Evans. She is heading up the new cybersecurity division within Department of Energy. It's brand new. I think she's probably been there maybe six months or so, now. That'll be exciting and I think it's always great, as well, when you have women in cybersecurity. It will be great to hear from her.

Charlene Alletto

Carolyn: Yeah, speaking of, we get Charlene Alletto back. She's a firecracker, I have to say and her and Erica had a very lively session last year. I'm really looking forward to seeing what we've done in the last year around CDM Defend and getting her back with our audience.

Eric: Okay, so I promise we'll do an update, a one year later update. We had such great rapport.

Leadership Forum Event Details

Eric: Assuming somebody wants to go,

• how do they do it,
• what's the cost?
• When is it?

April 4th, Registration starting at 7:00am

Carolyn: April fourth. We start registration at seven A.M., we've got a great breakfast lined up. Then we kick off the forum at 8:30 A.M. and it goes through the day. You can go online and we will put the URL, we'll attach it to this podcast, so you can go online and register. For government, it's free.

Arika: Wow.

Carolyn: Small fee for industry, its $195 to attend.

Links & Details

• Registration Page
• Venue Details
• List of all Speakers
• Forum Agenda

About the Food

Eric: Will they have good food?

Carolyn: The food is to die for. Listen, Goldy Kamali with Scoop News spares no expense when it comes to food. We will have the cupcakes back and the candy station, I'm looking forward to that.

Eric: Okay, I'm sold, I'll be there.

Arika: A little bit of inside information. Last year, I was doing some interviews by the candy station and it was fascinating to see all of these cybersecurity professionals come back multiple times to get the candy. The hot tamales were a hot item, I can say that. I actually saw one person come back and literally filled five bags to take with him. People who you think wouldn't normally go for this type of candy, it was a hot ticket the candy station.

Carolyn: We encourage it and I'm super excited to have Jumanji back too. I know you met Jumanji, Arika, so Jumanji is our mascot. One of our security engineers, Marcus Copeland, his service dogs name is Jumanji and he is our mascot for charities that we support, Freedom Service dogs. This year our goal is to sponsor a dog from start to finish and it's really expensive to do that.

Eric: What does that cost?

Carolyn: It's like $30,000.

Eric: Okay, okay, let's do it.

Great food, great content, great speakers

Carolyn: We're going to be raising money for that cause there and we'll bring Marcus up on stage. His story is fascinating.

Eric: Great food, great content, great speakers. Where is it again?

Carolyn: It is at The Ritz, Pentagon City.

Eric: They have great parking and it's a metro station that's easy to get to.

Arika: Right by the metro, the metro is right there.

Eric: The Ritz is always great food, great location. How many people are you expecting?

Carolyn: We're expecting 800. Like I said, this conference has grown since 2009, thirty people to it just gets bigger and bigger every year.

Join us at #FCLF for a live podcast

Arika: Well, very cool and the last thing I'll add here, I don't know Eric if you know this, but we're actually going to be doing our podcast live from the event when I can grab you. Any listeners out there that are dying to meet Eric and I in person, get yourself down to The Ritz, Pentagon City on April 4th and join us at FCLF.

Eric: I need hair and make-up. I'm putting the request in now.

Carolyn: Done.

Arika: Yes, great event, like I said. I've been to lots of different types of events across a lot of different industries, but really, really enjoyed this one. I think it's such a great thought leadership, gathering of folks from across academia, industry, as well as government. I'm excited to be there as well this year.

Eric: We're one stop from the Pentagon. Carolyn, did I hear that General Yee from the Army CIO's office?

Arika: General Yee will be there, he is another one I am super excited for. We've tried to get him before and we've got him this year.

Eric: Awesome, looking forward to it.

Arika: Okay, so we hope to see some listeners at the event. Thanks as always for tuning into this week to To The Point Cybersecurity. Please do leave us reviews, let us know what you want us to talk about, and if you see us at FCLF, come say hi. Have a great week guys.