Event Overview

The AFCEA Washington DC Cybersecurity Technology Summit is a gathering for executives from government, military, and defense industries to discuss the intensifying competition between world powers. This year's Summit will cover a range of exciting topics, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, cloud services, supply chain security, and Zero Trust architectures to name a few. 2024 is emerging as a pivotal year for the future of AI, as governments, researchers, and enterprises seek to establish how this evolutionary leap in technology can be most practically integrated into our everyday lives.

With cyber threats on the rise, adversaries are targeting the US through influence operations, data breaches, and attempts to infiltrate government networks and weapon systems. Incidents such as the SolarWinds cyberattack and the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline negatively impact the country's economic security and demonstrate potential threats to national security.

The Department of Defense continues migrating operations into cloud environments and diversifying communications pathways to support tactical and strategic operations around the globe. To combat evolving sophisticated cyber threats and to enable broader mission success in an era of great power competition, our military and defense agencies will need to shift from perimeter defenses to Zero-Trust based security controls and technologies. The summit, scheduled for October 24, 2024, aims to shape strategies to fortify cybersecurity in an era of geopolitical complexities.

The key objectives of the summit are to:

  • Foster collaboration: Encourage collaboration between government, military, academia, and defense industry leaders to counteract cyber threats within the dynamics of great power competition.
  • Analyze the threat landscape: Provide a comprehensive overview of the current cybersecurity threat landscape, focusing on emerging threats and evolving attack vectors.
  • Showcase innovative technologies: Highlight technologies and solutions that can provide a strategic advantage in the cyber domain and align with the imperatives of great power competition.

At the Cybersecurity Technology Summit, attendees will dive deeper into the challenges that the DoD must overcome and the people, processes, and technology that must be in place to truly compete, deter, defend, and fight in cyberspace.

Details

When:

Thursday, October 24, 2024
8:00 am - 5:30 pm

 

Where:

Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel
2800 South Potomac Avenue
Arlington, Virginia, 22202

 

 

 

 

Time

Session

8:00 - 9:15 AM

Registration & Coffee

9:15 -9:30 AM

Welcome and Opening Comments

9:30 - 10:10 AM

Morning Keynote

10:10 - 10:55 AM

Panel: AI and the Impact on Cyberspace

10:55 - 11:10 AM

Coffee Break

11:10 - 11:55 AM

Panel: Driving Mission Across Multi-Clouds Securely

12:00 - 12:45 PM

Lunch

12:45 - 1:30 PM

Panel: Evolution of GSA Assisted Acquisition Services (AAS)

1:30 - 2:00 PM

Afternoon Keynote

2:00 - 2:45 PM

Panel: Emerging Tech

2:45 - 3:00 PM

Coffee Break

3:00 - 3:45 PM

Panel: Post Quantum Cryptography

3:45 - 4:30 PM

Panel: Mitigating Supply Chain Risks

4:30 - 6:00 PM

Happy Hour

KEYNOTE

Top Cybersecurity Priorities for the Department of Defense

David McKeown

Deputy DoD Chief Information Officer for Cybersecurity (DCIO(CS)) and DoD Senior Information Security Officer (SISO)

PANEL DESCRIPTIONS

AI and the Impact on Cyberspace Panel

AI is already impacting the way offensive and defensive cyber operations are being conducted. AI capabilities have increased the speed of offensive cyber operations and helped increase the believability to social engineering attacks. Defenders are struggling to keep pace while also exploring how best to leverage AI for active and passive defense measures. What was once science fiction of machine-on-machine cyber warfare is quickly becoming a reality.

In this breakout session, government and academic leaders discuss observations from the field and the latest academic research. The panel will discuss ideas on how the government can best position itself for the rapidly changing world of AI and cybersecurity.

Driving Mission Across Multi-Clouds Securely Panel

The DoD's multi-cloud strategy is enabled through the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC).  With initiatives like JADC2 and ADA, and evolving workload automation tools, defense agencies can now match workloads to the most suitable cloud platforms for performance, scalability, and compliance. However, managing these multi-cloud environments increases network complexity and expands attack surfaces, making visibility and control across infrastructures critical for cyber defense.
In this session, defense IT and security experts will discuss the policies, processes, and technologies needed to protect information in a global, multi-cloud environment.

Evolution of GSA Assisted Acquisition Services (AAS) Panel

As the Federal Government’s primary provider of acquisition services, GSA awards more than $87 billion in contracts Government-wide and is committed to delivering innovation, value, and an exceptional customer experience.  The significant reorganization of GSA’s Assisted Acquisition Service (AAS) within GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) is in progress, resulting in impacts to both GSA customers and the Industry Partners community.  Given the remarkable growth of AAS business it is critical for stakeholders to gain a deeper understanding of the Service Delivery models, how AAS will interact and support its government customers, and how industry can best engage across the enterprise.  We will hear directly from a representative from each of the five business units on the status of the reorganization, changes industry and customers might expect to their acquisition processes, and how this new model better services their client centric portfolios.

Emerging Tech Panel

Beginning with Secretary Carter in 2015 and continuing today, DoD has embraced emerging technology like never before, including commercial capabilities and venture-backed start-ups.

This panel will assess DoD’s progress in diversifying its technology strategy through collaboration with emerging tech, including perspectives from both government and industry.

Post Quantum Cryptography Panel

DoD and the broader community face a persistent risk due to the emergence of quantum technology capable of circumventing conventional cryptographic standards. Panelists will examine all facets of this risk, including to historic information accessed by our adversaries, its impact on initiatives like JADC2 and strategies for mitigating it, both technical and organizational.

Mitigating Supply Chain Risks Panel

The SolarWinds breach put the spotlight on supply chain risks and security. Although the DoD was not breached, 37 defense industrial base companies were hit by the sweeping SolarWinds supply chain hack attributed to the Russian government. The DoD has been aware of counterfeit equipment and supply risks for decades. However, security requirements and controls are so vast, they span across many areas in the IT and cybersecurity world. Traditionally, rear echelon supply chains were assumed to be a safe operation space. However, this is rapidly changing and rear supply chains are being contested, lengthened, and placed under threat. DoD is working strategies to operate in contested logistical spaces and will need to partner with supplies and industry to overcome these new challenges.

In this breakout session, defense and government security experts will provide insights into best practices, solutions and technology that will strengthen supply chain defenses.