FWKCC Speaker Breakfast tackles ‘Cyber Security’ Nov. 7
With recent headlines about cyber security threats, Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce is holding a panel discussion on “Cyber Security” as its upcoming Breakfast Speaker Series topic.
The quarterly breakfast series, which is open to the public, will take place from 7:30 to 9 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 7, in Fox Den Country Club, 12284 N. Fox Den Drive. The panel discussion will begin about 8 a.m.
Presented by Town of Farragut, First Utility District of Knox County and farragutpress, registration is available online at farragutchamber.com/. Cost is $30 for Chamber members and $40 for non-members. Students can attend for $15. Prices will increase after Friday, Nov. 3.
“We saw great success and a great response from the previous breakfast panel we did last August on the opioid epidemic,” Judy Blaylock, FWKCC president/CEO, said. “And so, we decided to do another panel format because it seems to be something that the community and our businesses really like.
“It also allows us to give them a lot more information and from more diverse sources.We have a wonderful panel coming up,” Blaylock added.
Panel moderator is Charles Nelson, lead instructor with Pellissippi State Community College’s new cyber defense study program. Nelson has 30 years experience working in secure information environments as an officer in the U.S. Army.
Other panelists include supervisory Special Agent Daniel Damron, Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Cyber Squad/Knoxville branch, which concentrates on cyber crime and special investigations; Bill Dean, senior manager of LBMC Information Security Services Division, with 20 years of technology experience — 10 of those in digital forensics and information security; Joe Littleton, SouthEast Bank/EdSouth Services, headquartered in Farragut, and Mark McKinney, head of capital infrastructure and system improvements with First Utility District of Knox County.
The topic came about because of “so many recent news stories about data breaches,” Blaylock said. “One of them was Equifax, and if you go back over the last several years, so many of our major retailers most of us shop at have been breached at one point in time or another, and customer credit cards or data have been released and so many people have been the victims of identity theft.
“Businesses have been the victim of theft of their corporate information or their customers’ information, so it’s a topic that’s touched all of us in recent years,” she added. “I think that it is only going to increase because we live our lives online more and more.
“In an effort to go paper-free and to simplify all the things we have to do, we put ourselves at an increased risk. So, I think there is a need for there to be greater awareness of what we could do to protect ourselves for businesses and individuals both.”
