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It’s really no surprise that Build IT Together is being asked to focus on security this year—2014 was packed with stories of stolen identities, hacked companies, and massive data leaks. We saw the Identity Theft Resource Center record almost 800 significant data breaches from companies like Chase Bank and American Express, and Americans are being hit with a new case of identity theft every two seconds, totalling to almost 20 million cases in 2014.

Speaking of Security

Even after we deflate the more notorious hacking scandals, IT has still had to tackle threats including the Doomsday Bug, BadUSB, and Heartbleed. This is also why the IT community in Michigan voted Information security as the most important topic of 2015 and why Chris Czub, an information security research expert, will be giving the keynote address at the May conference.

“The way IT security services are marketed today is full of fear, uncertainty and doubt. I’m really excited to have Chris help us separate fact from fiction and differentiate between the real threats and what’s myth or marketing spin.” said Dan Jefferies, Chief Happiness Officer at Newmind Group Inc., one of the event’s organizers.

Chris is a Security Research Engineer for Duo Security, with experience in secure coding, application security auditing, endpoint security, network monitoring, malware analysis, security advisory oversight and threat intelligence. Duo Security is based out of Ann Arbor, and they’re focused on two-factor authentication and account security.

Worldwide, security spending in IT is expected to reach $76.9 billion in 2015, up 8% from last year, and 16% from 2013. Needless to say, we shouldn’t see this growth in interest to slow down anytime soon. Infosec has made some haunting (and plausible) predictions, such as digital attacks becoming the greatest threat to state economies in 2015, and that for the first time, we’ll be seeing exploits designed specifically for compromising mobile platforms—especially targeting mobile banking.

Breakout Sessions

While security may be at the top of Build IT Together’s interests this year, we’ll be featuring several other sessions relevant to IT, to help reflect and cultivate the environments we work in. The sessions will include:

  • This is how we do IT
    Stories from local IT directors about their approach to IT strategy.
  • How to cultivate a good IT culture
    How have local organizations cultivated their unique culture? What makes them great?
  • Doing IT with less budget
    Discover how to internally marketing IT value & exploring solutions that cost less.

Separate fact from fiction: explore data security during Build IT Together 2015.