Profs & Pints DC: DOGE and Federal Cybersecurity
Profs and Pints DC presents: “DOGE and Federal Cybersecurity,” a look at how President Trump’s special commission may be creating opportunities for accidents, hacker attacks, or the theft of your data, with Dr. Richard Forno, assistant director of the Cybersecurity Institute at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and co-author of Cybersecurity and Local Government.
Along with disrupting Washington and federal bureaucracy, President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been giving cybersecurity experts and technology managers reason to sound alarms. Appearing to lack meaningful operational expertise or any real oversight, DOGE’s employees may well be creating conditions that are ideal for cybersecurity breaches and data privacy incidents across the government. And they have deep access to a trove of critical federal systems and sensitive personal data.
Learn about the basic principles of cybersecurity, how DOGE seems to be disregarding them, and how you might be affected by any resulting security breaches with Dr. Richard Forno, a 30-year veteran of the cybersecurity industry. His talk will draw from career experience that includes helping to build the first cybersecurity program at the U.S House of Representatives, advising Fortune 500 companies and the government on cybersecurity and infrastructure protection, and serving as the chief security officer at Network Solutions, once the proverbial “center of the internet.”
Dr. Forno will discuss how cybersecurity is supposed to work, what's needed to implement it effectively, and the potential consequences for failing to handle it correctly. Then he’ll explain what experts on cybersecurity and national security find worrisome about how DOGE is carrying out its practically unlimited mandate to reform federal government systems in accordance with recent executive orders. You’ll learn why DOGE's staff, their controversial activities to date, the security culture of the current administration, and the plight of federal information technology workers are all seen as cause for concern.
Ultimately, Dr. Forno will show why it’s crucial for the administration, Congress and the public to recognize the cybersecurity dangers that DOGE’s activities pose and take meaningful steps to bring it under reasonable control and oversight. Among the questions he’ll tackle: How much should the average citizen be concerned, and what can they do about it? (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image from GoodFon.com
Event Links
Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/2901478-0
