Attendees and Speakers Gathered to Share Best Practices and Lessons Learned
The Information Sharing and Analysis Organization Standards Organization (ISAO SO) hosted attendees from around the world in Tysons Corner, Virginia for the Second Annual International Information Sharing Conference (IISC) on Sept. 11-12, 2018. The two-day event brought together the public and private sector to discuss the best practices, lesson learned and the future of information sharing efforts.
“We were delighted to see so many of our information sharing friends attend the International Information Sharing Conference,” said Dr. Gregory White, executive director of the ISAO SO. “The ISAO community benefits greatly from coming together to discuss what’s been learned and how best to collaborate with each other. The best way to build trust among the entire ISAO ecosystem is for us to meet in person and the SO is perfectly positioned to gather the best of practitioners, vendors and thought leaders together.”
Day one of the IISC 2018 began with a warm welcome and moment of silence in remembrance of 9/11. The conference officially kicked off with an action-packed update from Dr. White on the State of the Information Sharing Ecosystem. The organization revealed the ISAO SO will formally split into two entities. The ISAO SO will continue to focus on the development of documents, while the newly formed National Council of Registered ISAOs (NCRI) will focus on serving as a voice of the ISAO community.
Next, Acting Director Bradford Willke, of DHS’s Stakeholder Engagement & Cybersecurity Infrastructure, took the stage for the opening keynote to discuss the shared responsibility of public private partnerships. Douglas Maughan, DHS Science & Technology Directorate Cyber Security Division, followed with a government keynote. Ann Beauchesne, Global Ridge Cyber Institute, returned to deliver an industry keynote on how the community can effectively and efficiently share information. She echoed a quote often said by former Governor Tom Ridge, “Trust is a great force multiplier.”
Trust was an essential theme throughout the first morning of keynote addresses. The morning rounded out with a keynote from CyberUSA’s David Powell, and three presentations from ISAO support organizations, International Association of Certified ISAOs, Global Resilience Federation and the Cyber Resilience Institute, before the general session broke for lunch. Steve Ingram, of PwC Australia, closed the morning with a riveting talk on Australia’s information sharing community. The day ended with afternoon sessions featuring representatives from ACTRA, FS-ISAC, the Center for Model Based Regulation, TruSTAR, Surevine, MITRE and the Global Directors & Officers ISAO. Matt Gardner concluded the day by leading the first meeting of the NCRI as the interim president of the newly formed entity.
The morning of day two saw the ISAO SO induct three new members to the Information Sharing Hall of Fame, including the Small and Mid-sized Business ISAO (SMB ISAO), the Information Technology ISAO (IT ISAO), and an individual award honoring cybersecurity evangelist Douglas DePeppe. Ernesto Ballesteros, Texas Cybersecurity Coordinator, kicked off the second day of keynote addresses followed by an address on public private partnership from Gary Gardner, chairman of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, an ISAO SO organization partner. Anyck Turgeon, with IBM, captivated the general session with an international keynote, before Tommy McDowell of the Retail Cyber Intelligence Sharing Center (R-CISC) discussed his experience working with the retail community and the value of sharing information sharing with the audience. Dr. White then took the stage again to advocate for the need to build Geographically-Based Community ISAOs. The afternoon sessions featured the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, SMB ISAO, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the Cyber Leadership Alliance. The conference closed with a dynamic presentation on the evolution from Traffic Light Protocol (TLP) to Information Exchange Protocol (IEP) by Thomas Millar, Technical Advisor, National Protection & Programs Directorate at DHS.
“We received some terrific feedback from attendees about this year’s conference speakers,” explained Allen Shreffler, deputy director of the ISAO SO. “The ISAO SO elevated the conference by including more industry speakers than last year in an effort to ramp up the private public partnership needed to improve information sharing. The future of this conference looks bright, and we look forward to seeing it continue to grow as the ISAO community becomes stronger and grows in numbers.”
