2026 Secure Carolinas Conference

Why Attend?

Secure Carolinas 2026, hosted by AegisX on August 26–27 at the Roam Center in downtown Greenville, is a premier cybersecurity conference bringing together 350+ professionals from

Manufacturing
Energy
Technology
Healthcare

for two days of focused insight and collaboration. Centered on the critical themes of Agentic AI Attacks & Defense, Geopolitical Cyber Conflict, and Supply Chain Vulnerabilities, the event will feature expert-led sessions, industry panels, and 20+ exhibitors showcasing cutting-edge solutions. Designed for security leaders and technical practitioners alike, Secure Carolinas delivers actionable intelligence, strategic perspective, and meaningful networking in an increasingly complex threat landscape.

Event Schedule

8:00AM

Lobby

→ 1 hour

Registration

9:00AM

Assembly

→ 1 hour

Trust No One? Rethinking Cybersecurity in the Age of AI, Supply Chain Risk & Digital Warfare

Cybersecurity has entered a new era where attackers aren't just exploiting vulnerabilities—they're exploiting trust. AI agents make decisions at machine speed, software supply chains have become attack surfaces, and geopolitical conflicts are increasingly fought in cyberspace. Traditional security models were never designed for this reality. In this session, we'll explore seven practical "pearls of wisdom" drawn from today's evolving threat landscape and recent high-profile cyber incidents. Attendees will learn how leading organizations are shifting from perimeter-based defenses to resilience-focused strategies built on identity, visibility, Zero Trust principles, and rapid detection. Whether you're a CISO, security practitioner, or IT leader, you'll leave with actionable insights for strengthening your security posture in an increasingly interconnected—and increasingly untrusted—world.

Speaker

Ashley Sage

10:00AM

Assembly

→ 30 mins

Networking Break

10:30AM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

The County You Didn't Audit: How Civic Infrastructure Gaps Create Critical Vulnerability at Scale

When a 600MW data center is proposed for a county with confirmed PFAS water contamination, no community impact assessment requirement, and a $400 million infrastructure gap, the question is not whether the facility is secure. The question is whether the community surrounding it can sustain it. This session presents findings from GovParti, a civic intelligence platform that analyzed 3,127 U.S. counties across health, housing, environmental, legal, and economic indicators to produce a composite civic health score for every county in the country. The data reveals a pattern that security professionals rarely see on their dashboards: the counties attracting the largest critical infrastructure investments are often the least equipped to support them. Using real county-level data, this talk will cover: - How water system violations, workforce gaps, and regulatory blind spots create physical supply chain risk for facilities sited in under-resourced communities - A case study of a proposed hyperscale data center in West Texas, where PFAS contamination, military base proximity, and absent state-level siting requirements converge - How Texas SB 6 addressed grid-level cost allocation for large loads but left community-level resilience entirely unregulated - What the EPA UCMR5 data, TCEQ enforcement records, and county-level health rankings reveal about the environments where critical digital infrastructure is being built - A framework for evaluating civic readiness as a factor in infrastructure siting risk While the primary case study is drawn from West Texas, the framework and underlying data cover all 3,127 U.S. counties, with direct applicability to data center siting decisions across the Southeast and nationally. Attendees will leave with a concrete understanding of how to assess the non-cyber risk surface of critical infrastructure: the water, power, governance, and community capacity layers that determine whether a facility can operate reliably over its full lifecycle.

Speaker

Amy Barthelemy

Room 2

→ 40 mins

When Agentic AI Becomes an Attack Surface: Governance, Control Failures, and Operational Risk

Agentic AI systems promise speed, scale, and automation, but without the right operating model they create new risk faster than most organizations can see it. I will explain how weak governance turns AI initiatives into fragile systems defined by accountability gaps, brittle integrations, activity-based metrics, and decisions that look efficient while increasing operational exposure. Drawing on my existing frameworks for auditing AI programs, I will tell how to identify governance voids, weak data foundations, and missing strong criteria before they become real business and security problems. I will also walk through practical patterns for production-safe agentic workflows, including confidence scoring, escalation rules, structured audit trails, monitoring dashboards, and controls that keep humans accountable for outcomes. After te session listeners will have a concrete way to evaluate whether their AI program is building resilience.

Speaker

Jim Markunas

Room 3

→ 40 mins

Session 10-Arctic Wolf

11:15AM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Geopolitical Threat, Local Impact: Helping Frontline Teams Understand Nation-State Risk

Nation-state cyber threats get serious attention at the leadership level. Security teams track the advisories. Executives get the briefings. However, somewhere between the intelligence report and the plant floor, the warehouse, the clinic, and the IT help desk — the message stops traveling. And that gap is exactly where attackers find their way in. This session is about closing the distance between what security leaders know about geopolitical cyber risk and what frontline workers in critical infrastructure environments actually understand about their role in defending against it. Because the IT admin at a regional energy provider, the procurement coordinator at a mid-size manufacturer, and the clinic scheduler at a regional health system — they're all part of the threat surface. They just don't know it yet. Lakeidra Smith draws on her background in cybersecurity education and curriculum design to break down how nation-state tactics translate into day-to-day risk for workers across Manufacturing, Energy, Healthcare, and Technology — and what it actually looks like to build threat awareness at every level of an organization, not just at the top. Attendees will leave with a communication framework for translating geopolitical threat intelligence into language that resonates with non-technical employees, a tiered education model that meets workers where they are, and concrete examples of how frontline behavior has been the deciding factor in both successful attacks and near-misses on critical infrastructure. Because your perimeter is only as strong as the person who least understands why it matters.

Speaker

Lakeidra Smith

Room 2

→ 40 mins

Helvetic Cybersecurity Maturity Model – Measuring and Improving Organizational Cyber Resilience

Cybersecurity is no longer only a technical issue – it has become a strategic business risk. Yet many organizations struggle to understand their actual cybersecurity maturity and how to systematically improve it. While frameworks such as ISO 27001, NIST, or CIS provide important guidance, they often do not clearly answer the practical question many executives ask: Where do we stand today, and what should we improve first? This session introduces the Helvetic Cybersecurity Maturity Model (HCMM), a structured framework designed to assess, visualize, and improve an organization's cybersecurity maturity in a practical and understandable way. Inspired by principles of Swiss precision and structured engineering, HCMM helps organizations evaluate their security posture across key domains such as governance, identity management, infrastructure protection, monitoring, incident response, human factors, and data protection. Participants will learn how maturity-based assessments can help translate complex cybersecurity challenges into clear management decisions, prioritize investments, and create realistic improvement roadmaps toward stronger cyber resilience. The session provides strategic insights, practical perspectives, and a structured way to think about cybersecurity as a continuous improvement process rather than a collection of isolated security tools.

Speaker

Dr. S. Isele

Room 3

→ 40 mins

Vibe Hacking: How I Built a World-Class Hacking Tool in a Weekend

Everyone loves a speed-run, especially when it results in a disruptive tool. This topic pulls back the curtain on using agentic workflows to bypass the traditional, slow software development lifecycle. It’s practical, highly technical, and deeply relatable to anyone trying to maximize their output.

Speaker

Joe B.

12:00PM

Assembly

→ 55 mins

Lunch

1:00PM

Assembly

→ 1 hour

NetGear Panel

NetGear

Room 2

→ 40 mins

The Agentic Home Lab: Securing Autonomous AI Systems in the Real World

What happens when you stop babysitting AI agents and actually let them work, in an environment that has to be secure? This session offers a behind-the-scenes look at a Kubernetes-based "agentic home lab". This is a production grade AI playground built on a second-hand server (Dell R730). It is designed to let autonomous agents plan, execute, and recover with minimal human intervention. As organizations explore agentic AI, they face a new class of challenges: uncontrolled execution, data exposure, lateral movement, and unpredictable behavior across interconnected tools. This talk reframes agentic AI through a cybersecurity lens. You'll see how applying principles like least privilege, network segmentation, GitOps, and observability transforms AI agents from potential threats, into controlled, auditable systems. In this environment, guardrails don't limit agents, they make them more capable and safe to operate at scale. We'll walk through real architecture patterns including: - Multi-agent systems with scoped roles and delegated authority - Secure CI/CD pipelines enabling agent driven code execution - RAG as a controlled infrastructure instead of prompt injection risk - Observability pipelines that make autonomous behavior debuggable and auditable This session provides a practical, field-tested blueprint for safely enabling autonomous AI, without turning your environment into a security incident.

Speaker

Lucas Ward

Room 3

→ 40 mins

RAGged and Compromised: Hacking Retrieval-Augmented Generation Systems

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has rapidly become the backbone of enterprise AI and Agentic AI. Organizations are deploying copilots, search assistants, and autonomous agents at scale. However, this architecture introduces an expansive and largely untested attack surface. This session looks at the RAG stack end-to-end to show how seemingly benign PDFs, wiki pages, or knowledge base articles can become adversarial payloads capable of data exfiltration, policy bypass, and autonomous agent manipulation. We will also look at with defensive engineering patterns designed to harden enterprise RAG deployments.

Speaker

Blaize Stewart

2:05PM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure/OT

In this session i will briefly establish some baseline definitions of cyber security and why we do it in a traditional IT focused environment. Then we will look at the reasons for and the impact of doing cyber security in an OT.critical infrastructure environment and examine some real world attacks and their impacts over the last 7-10 years.

Speaker

Jared Chambliss

Room 2

→ 40 mins

Why AI Makes Everything Faster—Including Failure: A Leadership Checklist for Secure Adoption

Most organizations approach AI expecting intelligence; what they actually get first is speed. In high-stakes sectors like Manufacturing and Energy, AI does not fix unclear processes—it accelerates them, often magnifying existing security vulnerabilities and fragmented information. In this session, Dusty Gulleson introduces The AI Readiness Checklist, a practical framework for evaluating whether an organization is prepared to benefit from AI or is at risk of "accelerating failure". The talk moves beyond the technical hype to focus on executive risk management, covering: - Information Integrity: Ensuring AI relies on trusted, accurate data. - Decision Ownership: Clarifying accountability when AI supports high-consequence decisions. - Velocity Control: Implementing leadership guardrails to manage risk as operational responses move faster.

Speaker

Dusty Gulleson

Room 3

→ 40 mins

Work Hardened, Anti Fragile

Prevention tried to stop failure. Resilience taught us how to endure it. Anti‑fragility goes further, using disruption as fuel for growth. This presentation examines how organizations can move beyond simply “bouncing back” to intentionally building systems that thrive under pressure. In a world defined by unpredictability, the most successful teams aren’t the ones that avoid stress—they’re the ones designed to benefit from it.

Speaker

Gareth Hay

2:50PM

Assembly

→ 30 mins

Networking Break

3:25PM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Session 1-THREATLOCKER

Room 2

→ 40 mins

Governing AI Autonomy for Trust in Compliance-Critical Workflows

As Large Language Models (LLMs) are integrated into enterprise systems, their role in automating workflows introduces new challenges for trust, control, and risk management. In compliance-sensitive domains such as fintech onboarding and transactional processes, fully autonomous AI actions may lead to unintended outcomes if not properly governed. A key question is when AI systems should act independently and when human oversight is required. This session presents findings from a controlled study (N=69) evaluating autonomy governance strategies in an AI-assisted onboarding workflow. Participants completed a simulated task under three conditions: (A) manual interaction, (B) automation with visible confidence levels, and (C) confidence-governed automation, where system actions were executed only when certainty exceeded a predefined threshold. Results show a significant impact of autonomy strategy on trust. Displaying AI confidence alone reduced trust compared to both manual interaction and threshold-governed automation. In contrast, confidence-governed automation maintained trust levels comparable to manual workflows, without increasing perceived workload or reducing usability (NASA TLX, UMUX-Lite). These findings highlight autonomy governance as a practical mechanism for managing risk and improving trust in AI-driven systems. Introducing decision thresholds can help balance automation with oversight, supporting more reliable and secure deployment of agentic AI in enterprise environments.

Speaker

Pradeep Periasamy

Room 3

→ 40 mins

You Vetted the Vendor. Did You Vet the Model?

Organizations have spent years building third-party risk management programs — vendor questionnaires, SOC 2 reviews, contract reviews, annual reassessments. But those programs were built for a world where the third party was a company. Today, the third party is also a model. When your organization integrates an LLM API, deploys an AI-powered SaaS tool, or connects an agentic workflow to a vendor's AI backend, you're not just onboarding software. You're inheriting risk from training data you can't audit, model updates you won't be notified about, and prompt injection vulnerabilities your questionnaire has never asked about. This session delivers a practical AI vendor assessment framework that GRC teams can use today. Using examples from manufacturing and healthcare environments, we'll walk through the questions your vendor questionnaires are missing, how to map AI supply chain risk to NIST SP 800-161 and ISO 27001, and what a mature AI vendor risk program actually looks like. Attendees will leave with five questions to add to every AI vendor assessment immediately — and a framework for building a repeatable AI supply chain risk process from the ground up.

Speaker

Neviar Rawlinson

4:10PM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Secure Legacy Modernization: Risk-Aware Framework for Enterprise Systems

Legacy IT systems remain essential to enterprise operations but introduce significant security, operational, and financial risks. In large-scale environments, a substantial portion of IT budgets is dedicated to maintaining legacy systems, limiting the ability to adopt modern, secure architectures. These systems often feature tightly coupled designs, outdated technologies, and constrained integration capabilities, resulting in extended change cycles and increased exposure to vulnerabilities. This session synthesizes findings from 18 peer-reviewed studies (2020–2025) to examine modernization strategies, architectural transformation patterns, and governance practices with a focus on security and resilience. Five primary strategies rehosting, replatforming, refactoring, rearchitecting, and replacement are evaluated in terms of risk, cost, complexity, and security impact. Evidence shows that incremental approaches such as refactoring, replatforming, and phased microservices decomposition provide improved operational continuity, reduced failure rates, and better control over security risks compared to large-scale system replacement. The session highlights the role of governance, DevOps adoption, and knowledge management in reducing modernization risk, particularly in environments with high dependency on legacy expertise. A six-stage decision framework is presented, covering system assessment, strategy selection, architecture design, phased migration, validation, and operational integration. Additionally, a readiness scoring model is introduced to evaluate systems based on technical debt, risk exposure, and governance maturity. Attendees will gain a structured, security-focused approach to modernizing legacy systems while maintaining operational stability and minimizing risk.

Speaker

Anandan Sonaimuthu

Room 2

→ 40 mins

AI-Ready Data Security Posture with Microsoft Purview

As AI increases productivity, it also amplifies the risk of unintended data exposure, oversharing, and data loss. Each organization is at different stage of their data protection journey now further complicated by the rapid adoption of AI based systems. This session is focused on how organizations can strengthen data security and data loss prevention for both traditional workloads and AI‑driven systems using Microsoft Purview. Attendees will learn how to establish a scalable, business‑aligned information protection strategy that protects sensitive data across Microsoft 365, Copilot, and AI interactions without slowing the business. We will discuss how to strategize data security and governance to manage sensitive data, apply consistent protection and controls, and reduce AI‑related data exposure risks such as oversharing and inappropriate data use. Lastly, I will also share field experience for driving end‑user adoption and embedding data protection into everyday workflows making secure behavior intuitive, automated, and part of the organizational culture rather than a compliance burden.

Speaker

Riaz Javed Butt

Room 3

→ 40 mins

Cowpens & Cyber: Strategic Leadership That Creates Undeniable Impact

In January 1781, on a quiet pasture in South Carolina, General Daniel Morgan executed one of the most brilliant tactical victories of the Revolutionary War at the Battle of Cowpens. Outnumbered and facing an aggressive British force, Morgan didn’t rely on strength — he relied on strategy. In this dynamic keynote, Tom Scott connects the leadership lessons of Cowpens to today’s cybersecurity battlefield. Through the principles of choosing the terrain, layered defense, controlled retreat, understanding adversary psychology, and timing decisive action, attendees will discover how strategic thinking—not reactive technology—determines outcomes. Blending South Carolina history with modern cyber leadership, this session challenges executives and practitioners alike to stop reacting to threats and start shaping the fight. Strategy beats speed. Preparation beats panic. Leadership creates undeniable impact.

Speaker

Tom Scott

5:00PM

Assembly

→ 1 hour, 30 mins

Reception

8:00AM

Lobby

→ 1 hour

Registration

Day 2

8:30AM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Top CISO Concerns Today: From Cybersecurity to Business Resilience

The concerns keeping CISOs awake at night have not gone away. Ransomware, identity attacks, supply chain compromise, and persistent cyber threats remain foundational risks. What has changed is the environment in which security leaders operate. Artificial intelligence is accelerating the speed and scale of attacks. New regulations are increasing accountability. Boards are asking different questions. The role of the CISO is expanding beyond protecting systems to ensuring the organization can withstand disruption, recover with confidence, and continue delivering its mission. In this session, we will explore the top security concerns facing CISOs today, including Frontier AI, identity resilience, cyber recovery, regulatory pressure, and emerging operational risks. We will examine why traditional cybersecurity approaches are no longer enough and why business resilience has become the new mandate for security leadership.

Speaker

Jerry Carlson

Room 2

→ 40 mins

The Human Factor in AI Driven Cybersecurity

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming cybersecurity, but the human element remains key. This talk will cover how AI enhances, not replaces, human skills and the urgency of preparing a future-ready cybersecurity workforce. This talk highlights the indispensable role of humans in AI-driven cybersecurity, focusing on three key areas The Human Touch --We will discuss how human expertise remains vital in balancing the nuances of complex security threats with the precision of AI-driven decision-making. Ethical AI in Cybersecurity --The importance of integrating ethics into AI development will be highlighted, emphasizing the need to prioritize fairness, transparency, and accountability in AI-driven cybersecurity decisions. Continuous Learning is Imperative --We'll emphasize that continuous learning is essential for professionals to stay current with evolving threats and technologies, ensuring they can effectively collaborate with AI systems. Key Takeaways: Human expertise remains vital in balancing AI-driven decision-making. Ethical considerations must be integrated into AI development in cybersecurity. Continuous learning is essential for professionals to stay current with evolving threats and technologies. AI automation should be viewed as an enhancement of human capabilities, rather than a replacement

Speaker

Fletus Poston III

Room 3

→ 40 mins

Self-Healing Cloud Infrastructure Using API-Level Control and Machine Learning-Based Detection

Modern cloud environments operate under constant pressure from configuration drift, security threats, performance degradation, and infrastructure failures. These challenges can directly affect service-level agreement (SLA) compliance by disrupting uptime, response time, throughput, and security requirements. This presentation introduces an automated self-healing cloud architecture that uses API-level control and machine learning-based anomaly detection to maintain operational resilience and reduce dependence on manual intervention. The framework consists of four core components: a Compliance Engine, a Machine Learning Engine, an API Gatekeeper, and a Remediation Engine. Together, these components enable continuous monitoring, anomaly detection, and rapid corrective action. The system analyzes infrastructure metrics such as CPU utilization, memory consumption, storage I/O, and network traffic against defined policy thresholds, while machine learning models establish baseline behavior across daily, weekly, and seasonal usage patterns. These baselines support the detection of deviations associated with configuration errors, noisy-neighbor conditions, security incidents, and infrastructure faults. A key innovation of this approach is the API Gatekeeper, which allows specific APIs to be selectively disabled without shutting down an entire service. This fine-grained containment strategy reduces operational disruption, preserves partial service availability, and supports targeted remediation during live incidents. Automated remediation workflows then perform diagnostics, correct misconfigurations, reallocate resources, isolate threats, and validate compliance before restoring API access. The presentation also addresses practical deployment considerations, including model training with historical operational data, API dependency mapping, rollback safety, security of control points, and integration with existing monitoring and incident-management platforms. The result is a resilient cloud infrastructure model that strengthens security, improves operational efficiency, and supports consistent SLA performance through proactive detection and precise API-level recovery.

Speaker

Himanshu Pandey

9:15AM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Shadow Agents: When Your Organization Deploys AI That Security Never Approved

The AI threat isn't just external. Across every industry — manufacturing, healthcare, energy, technology — teams are deploying AI agents, automation tools, and model-driven workflows into production environments without security review, without logging, and without a clear owner. These shadow AI deployments carry persistent credentials, make autonomous decisions, and interact with sensitive data — yet they exist outside every control your security program has built. This session addresses the defensive challenge of AI systems your own organization created but never secured. Drawing from real-world escalations involving autonomous tools that grew from prototypes into business-critical systems, attendees will learn: how shadow AI deployments proliferate; the unique risk profile of agentic systems (persistent tokens, self-service credential recovery, write access without human-in-the-loop); detection strategies for identifying unauthorized AI/automation deployments; an escalation framework that drives remediation without killing innovation; and containment decisions when the "threat" is a tool your own team built and 100+ people rely on daily. This is not a talk about defending against external AI-driven attacks. This is about the AI attack surface you're building from the inside.. Applicable to any organization where teams are deploying AI tools faster than security can review them.

Speaker

Reginald Johnson

Room 2

→ 40 mins

The Autonomous SRE: Will AI Replace Operational Engineering?

Session Abstract AI is rapidly automating operational tasks traditionally handled by SRE teams—from alert triage and log analysis to remediation and deployment orchestration. But what does this mean for the future of reliability engineering? Overview This thought-provoking session explores how SRE roles are evolving alongside AI advancements and what skills engineers need to remain effective in increasingly autonomous environments. 4 Key Takeaways Understand the evolution of AI-assisted SRE practices Identify operational tasks best suited for automation Learn where human expertise remains critical Prepare for the future of autonomous operations engineering

Speaker

Savi Grover

Room 3

→ 40 mins

Torq Vendor Session

10:00AM

Assembly

→ 30 mins

Networking Break

10:30AM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Modernization Is a Leadership Problem, Not a Tech Problem: Securing Legacy Infrastructure

Technical debt is not a sign of failure; it is evidence of growth and survival over time. However, in legacy-heavy environments, modernization introduces fear and organizational drag long before it introduces efficiency. The real risk is not the legacy system itself, but the panic-driven "rip and replace" strategies that destabilize critical operations. This session introduces The Modernization Readiness Framework, a model designed to help leaders modernization responsibly without eroding trust or continuity. Centered on leadership behavior rather than technical planning, this talk explores: - Sequencing over Speed: How to order changes to reduce fear and increase security adoption. - The Digital Governance Playbook: Lightweight guardrails that allow security teams to move faster while reducing bloat. - Credibility through Visible Progress: Earning staff confidence through small, secure wins before large-scale infrastructure shifts.

Speaker

Dusty Gulleson

Room 2

→ 40 mins

AI Is a Power Tool, Not a Strategy: Strengthening Security Decision-Making in an Automated Era

As AI adoption accelerates, security and IT leaders often see immediate gains in speed but struggle to translate that output into meaningful business results. Without a foundation of strategic clarity, AI doesn't solve organizational problems—it scales inconsistency, generic messaging, and poor decisions. This session reframes AI as an amplifier of strategy rather than a shortcut, helping leaders understand where automation genuinely creates leverage and where it quietly erodes differentiation and trust. Jason introduces the NORTH Star Framework as a model for vetting AI initiatives, moving teams from reactive content volume to durable, brand-led performance. Attendees will learn how to bridge the "AI Judgment Gap"—the space between what AI can generate and what human leaders must decide—and apply practical guardrails to protect organizational voice and risk. By shifting focus from activity to outcomes, leaders will leave with a clear roadmap to reduce algorithm dependency and build systems that hold up through rapid market and platform shifts.

Speaker

Jason Clark

Room 3

→ 40 mins

Leading Through Cyber Crisis: Governance, Decision-Making, and Organizational Resilience in High-Sta

In today’s evolving threat landscape, cyber incidents are no longer just technical challenges, they are leadership tests. As organizations face increasing risks from AI-driven attacks, geopolitical instability, and supply chain vulnerabilities, the ability of executives to lead with clarity, alignment, and resilience has become a critical differentiator. In this session, Dr. Monifa McKnight, former Superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools and governance strategist, brings a unique perspective on leading complex organizations through disruption and high-pressure decision-making. Drawing from over 25 years of executive leadership experience, she will explore how leaders can maintain trust, align stakeholders, and navigate crisis environments without compromising performance or culture. Attendees will gain practical insights on strengthening governance structures, improving executive communication during crisis, and building resilient organizations that can withstand and respond effectively to today’s most pressing cyber and operational threats.

Speaker

Monifa Mcknight

11:15AM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

SEO is Cyber Defense: How Visibility Tools Can Protect Rural Infrastructure

In the digital age, rural hospitals, school districts, local governments, and public service providers face growing cybersecurity threats — yet many overlook a critical layer of defense: their online visibility. This session explores how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and behavioral analytics tools can be powerful, low-cost allies in protecting critical infrastructure and public trust across underserved communities. When a cyber incident occurs, the first place people turn for answers is Google — but outdated metadata, missing schema, and unsecured websites make it easier for misinformation to spread and harder for official sources to be found. In this session, attendees will learn how tools like Google Search Console, Microsoft Clarity, structured data (JSON-LD), and heatmap tracking can help organizations not only prevent digital vulnerabilities, but also prepare for rapid, trusted crisis communication. Through real-world examples and rural case studies, we’ll demonstrate how SEO practices can flag early behavioral anomalies, harden digital presence, and ensure that the right information surfaces during emergencies — whether it's a ransomware attack or a public safety event. From schema-marked alerts to keyword-aware messaging, we’ll provide attendees with a toolkit

Speaker

Christopher Kemper

Room 2

→ 40 mins

AI-Driven Self-Healing Systems for Secure and Resilient Operations

As cloud-native and distributed systems grow in complexity, traditional runbook-driven operations struggle to keep pace with dynamic workloads, evolving threats, and continuous deployments. Reactive incident management often leads to alert fatigue, delayed root cause analysis, and increased mean time to resolution (MTTR), underscoring the need for more intelligent, adaptive, and security-aware operational models. This session presents a practical roadmap for transitioning from static runbooks to AI-driven self-healing systems that enhance both operational efficiency and system resilience. It begins by outlining foundational capabilities such as robust observability, event correlation, and standardized workflows, with an emphasis on integrating security signals into operational telemetry. Building on this foundation, the talk explores how AI and machine learning techniques such as anomaly detection, predictive analytics, and intelligent decision-making can augment automation to identify and mitigate risks proactively. A key focus is the design of closed-loop remediation frameworks that unify detection, diagnosis, and automated response, while enforcing governance and policy-driven safeguards. The session introduces a phased maturity model guiding organizations from manual processes to automated and autonomous operations, highlighting the importance of human oversight in ensuring trust and accountability. Attendees will gain actionable insights into improving system reliability, strengthening security posture, and building resilient, self-managing infrastructure capable of adapting in real time.

Speaker

Venkata Vivek Kothakonda

Room 3

→ 40 mins

I Get Knocked Down - But Getting Up Isn't Enough

"I get knocked down, but I get up again - you're never gonna keep me down." Chumbawamba had the right spirit, but most organizations have the wrong execution. The good news? You probably have a recovery plan and a resilience strategy. The bad news? Having them isn't the same as having them work. In this talk, I'll break down why resilience and recovery fail in practice even when organizations think they've planned for both. We'll dig into what the difference actually looks like when things go wrong, and how to pressure-test whether your plans will hold up when Chumbawamba's optimism meets reality. You've got a plan. Let's find out if it works.

Speaker

Eric Kuehn

12:00PM

Lobby

→ 55 mins

Lunch Day 2

Assembly

→ 55 mins

CIO perspective: Maximizing ROI in AI

How can the CIO put AI maximize their return on investment in a modern environment with revenue can cost pressures.

Speaker

Chip Crane

1:00PM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Critical Infrastructures Panel

Join us for a dynamic panel discussion with Renewable Water Resources exploring how to strengthen cybersecurity across critical infrastructure systems, with a focus on the water industry. Experts will share practical strategies to protect essential services from evolving cyber threats while maintaining operational resilience and public trust. This conversation will highlight the intersection of policy, technology, and risk management needed to safeguard one of our most vital resources.

Speaker

Rachelle Waite-Bey

Speaker

Toby Louris

Speaker

Zach Seiter

Room 2

→ 40 mins

AI-on-AI: When Your Defenses Become the Attack Vector

I’ll show how attackers have weaponized the very systems meant to protect us. I’ll explain the #1 adversarial manipulation technique: multi-turn manipulation, often called “the Crescendo Attack.” I’ll demonstrate how an offensive AI agent gradually shifts a conversation over multiple interactions, subtly eroding the defensive AI’s safety boundaries until it eventually discloses restricted information. I’ll also walk through a real-world supply chain attack where a defensive SOC AI is turned against itself.

Speaker

Clint Spicer

Room 3

→ 40 mins

RAGe Against the Machine: AI-Powered Compliance and Cybersecurity

As organizations grapple with increasingly complex regulatory environments and evolving cyber threats, the integration of AI has become a game-changer. This session will explore how Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) can revolutionize compliance, regulation gap analysis, and cybersecurity operations. Attendees will gain insights into real-world use cases, technical implementations, and lessons learned from deploying AI-driven compliance solutions at scale. We'll showcase practical demonstrations, discuss best practices, and provide actionable strategies for leveraging AI to stay ahead of compliance challenges. Whether you're a developer, security professional, or compliance officer, this session will equip you with the knowledge and tools to harness AI for regulatory excellence and cyber resilience.

Speaker

Brennan Lodge

1:45PM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Including AI risks as part of your Risk Management program

As the proliferation of AI reaches every market sector in the US and beyond, so do the risks associated with this adoption. In this session, Randall Laudermilk, the VP of Product and Partner Strategies at Carson & SAINT, will discuss the expanded attack surfaces that are result of this adoption and the security frameworks and best practices that are being implemented to address these challenges as part of an effective risk management program.

Speaker

Randall Laudermilk

Room 2

→ 40 mins

Empowering Patients To Use Artificial Intelligence

Only two nations in the world allow drug advertising directly to the consumer-- New Zealand and the United States. Harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to empower patients is a delicate balancing act of medicine and marketing. Any internet search will draw results. Analyzing the technology behind the top-ranked results reveals true motive. How can we protect patients? How should we teach the most vulnerable populations? AI is changing the interface between clinicians and their patient market. Let's examine the possibilities together.

Speaker

Lisa Tee

Room 3

→ 40 mins

No Leaks Detected!! Building Secure Azure Apps

Developers often inherit security risk the moment a credential lands in code or configuration. This session shows how to build secretless Azure applications by relying on managed identities, which replace secrets like access keys and passwords and can be granted permissions using Azure role-based access control (RBAC). You’ll also see how Private Endpoints / Private Link shrink your attack surface by keeping service traffic on private connectivity, plus how the private endpoint connection approval flow changes depending on RBAC permissions (automatic vs manual approval). By the end, attendees will be able to map an app’s dependencies to least-privilege RBAC assignments and pair them with private network access patterns—reducing credential leakage and unintended exposure while keeping developer workflows practical.

Speaker

Jason Farrell

2:30PM

Assembly

→ 30 mins

Networking Break

3:00PM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Dual-Scope Defense: Six Years of Municipal IT + OT Security and What It Taught Two Critical Sectors

Energy utilities and healthcare systems share a structural vulnerability that rarely surfaces in risk committee meetings: their most consequential systems — generation controls, SCADA networks, patient monitoring infrastructure, and building automation — are operationally catastrophic when they fail, difficult to isolate from the broader network, and patched on a schedule that the threat environment does not respect. Nation-state actors have demonstrated sustained interest in industrial control systems. Ransomware operators have specifically targeted hospitals as primary targets, not incidental exposures. The session is a case study, not a framework pitch. In August 2019, the City of Aurora, Illinois, deployed a full-spectrum managed security operation covering both enterprise IT and operational technology: a water treatment plant and a municipal traffic management network. Dual IT and OT scope inside a single managed engagement was uncommon for municipal deployments of that period, and it is the feature that distinguishes this case for energy and healthcare audiences who face the same structural requirement. The operation ran for six years, through December 2025. The outcome data is documented. Across that arc, the operation detected and mitigated 35,331 threats across IT and OT domains, eliminated 351 high-severity threats before they produced incidents, declared zero major security incidents, and delivered those results at 77% below the cost of an equivalent in-house Security Operations Center. The session examines three decisions that shaped this outcome. The first is the governance architecture: the city retained strategic authority while operational execution moved to a dedicated partner, structured through an embedded CISO consultant who held the governance layer in practice. The second is scope definition: the water treatment plant and the traffic network were treated as first-class defensive domains requiring continuous detection and response, not as extensions of enterprise IT managed on a different schedule. The third is the cost and staffing structure that made dual-scope coverage viable inside a public-sector budget. For energy operators and healthcare systems, these constraints translate directly. Generation controls and medical devices carry the same non-negotiable uptime requirements that Aurora's water systems carried. The governance split, the OT-first defensive posture, and the cost structure that worked for a city of nearly two hundred thousand residents apply with modification to a regional utility, a community health network, or a multi-site operator managing a single security budget against a distributed OT footprint. The session closes with the evaluation questions attendees can bring back to their own environments: what does dual-scope coverage cost against the alternative, what organizational commitments the governance split requires, and where the model does not transfer if the underlying structural decisions are not made.

Speaker

Cyrus Walker

Room 2

→ 40 mins

Securing AI Agents: A Risk-Adaptive Framework for Modern Threats

AI agents are rapidly transforming enterprise environments by enabling autonomous decision-making, multi-step task execution, and real-time system interaction. However, these agentic systems introduce fundamentally new cybersecurity risks that traditional controls are not designed to address, including prompt injection, adversarial manipulation, data exfiltration, and misuse of integrated tools. This session presents a Risk-Adaptive Cybersecurity Framework for securing AI agents across their lifecycle. Built on established standards such as NIST CSF 2.0 and ISO/IEC frameworks, it provides a structured approach spanning Governance, Data Security, Model Security, Infrastructure Security, Application Security, and Compliance. Aligned with Secure Carolinas themes, the session explores how AI agents expand the attack surface in supply chain ecosystems and can be leveraged or targeted in geopolitical cyber conflict scenarios. It introduces practical mechanisms such as dynamic risk assessment, adaptive control systems, and lifecycle integration to secure agentic workflows. Attendees will learn how to implement controls including secure prompt handling, tool access restrictions, output validation, agent identity and authorization, and behavioral monitoring. The session also covers incident response strategies tailored to autonomous systems. Participants will gain a practical and scalable approach to securing AI agents while maintaining resilience against evolving threats in complex, interconnected environments.

Speaker

Avdesh Mishra

Room 3

→ 40 mins

Black Box, Red Flags: Uncovering Hidden Risks in AI Systems

Artificial intelligence is helping businesses move faster — but what happens when we don’t fully understand how it works? This session breaks down the risks of using AI systems that are too complex to explain. You’ll learn how these “black box” models can lead to biased decisions, errors, and compliance issues — and what steps companies can take to spot warning signs and stay in control. Whether you’re in IT, compliance, or leadership, this talk will help you better manage the risks of AI in your organization.

Speaker

Markel Samuel

3:45PM

Assembly

→ 40 mins

Modern Identity with CAS in Academia

Learn how to build and manage secure JSON configurations for CAS/IdP using CAS, SAML, and OIDC protocols. This session focuses on strengthening authentication flows by implementing MFA, enforcing strict attribute filtering, and controlling data mapping to reduce risk. Discover how to design configurations that protect sensitive information, limit unnecessary data exposure, and support a secure, scalable identity management environment.

Speaker

Eugene Willis

Room 2

→ 40 mins

The Invisible Threat: AI-Powered Attacks, Human Error & Third-Party Vendor Compromise

The perimeter is no longer the battleground. Today's most consequential cyber attacks do not breach your walls. they walk through the trusted front door of a vendor, a software update, an OAuth token, or a misconfigured third-party integration. In 2025 and into 2026, Supply chain attacks quadrupled over five years, ransomware incidents surged 52%, and nation-state actors demonstrated the ability to compromise tools used by tens of millions of developers worldwide and, in some cases, with dwell times of under three hours before detection. This address examines the convergence of three forces that are fundamentally reshaping the cyber threat landscape: the weaponisation of artificial intelligence by adversaries; the persistent and underestimated role of human error and security awareness failures as the entry point of choice; and the systemic vulnerability introduced by third-party vendor relationships that carry implicit, often unexamined trust. Drawing on the most recent threat intelligence from IBM X-Force, Group-IB, Cyble, and the World Economic Forum, this presentation will show how AI-generated deepfakes, hyper-personalised phishing campaigns, and AI-accelerated lateral movement are outpacing detection systems calibrated for human-speed attackers. It will examine how high-profile supply chain incidents, including the Salesloft OAuth cascade, the Checkmarx developer-tool compromise, and the Jaguar Land Rover shutdown, share a common thread: a human decision, somewhere in the chain, that created the opening. The central argument is this: technology alone will not close the gap. The organisations that are winning are those building a deliberate, structured partnership between AI-driven detection and deeply trained human judgment. Security awareness is not a compliance checkbox. It is a frontline defensive capability. Third-party risk management is not a procurement function. It is a mission-critical security discipline that demands continuous monitoring, not point-in-time assessments. Attendees will leave with a clear framework for strengthening AI-human collaboration in their security operations, practical steps for embedding security awareness as an organisational culture rather than an annual training event, and a structured approach to mapping and continuously monitoring third-party vendor risk, before the next trusted door opens from the inside.

Speaker

Sushmitha Kandhukuri

Room 3

→ 40 mins

The unintended liability of Secure by Default and how to manage it.

"Secure by Design" and “Secure by Default” embody the principle of designing systems and software to be inherently secure from the outset, minimizing the need for additional security measures. It prioritizes built-in safeguards, authentication protocols, and encryption by default, reducing vulnerabilities and enhancing overall resilience against potential threats. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, along with nine other agencies, released a white paper highlighting how and why manufacturers need to change. The question not asked is, are companies ready for products that are "Secure by Default"? Are you documenting every time you turn off or downgrade a security feature? Is that "Too hard to replace" system or tool hobbling your entire tech stack? Are you prepared to answer why when an insurer or customer asks why X is off?

Speaker

Gareth Hay

Event Sponsors

Sponsor the 2026 Secure Carolinas Conference to elevate your brand’s visibility among key cybersecurity professionals and decision-makers, and to showcase your commitment to enhancing regional security efforts.

Why Sponsor?

Sponsoring the 2026 Secure Carolinas Conference in Greenville positions your brand as a leader in cybersecurity and AI. Gain direct access to industry decision-makers, showcase your solutions, and build lasting relationships with key stakeholders. Elevate your visibility and demonstrate your commitment to advancing cybersecurity across the Carolinas and beyond.

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Company Footprint

Our attendees represent organizations of all sizes—from nimble startups to Fortune 500 giants. Over 70% come from companies with 1,000+ employees, giving your brand access to enterprises with real buying power and influence.

1-200 Employees14%

201-1000 Employees15%

1,001-5000 Employees40%

5001+ Employees31%

Who you'll reach

Reach key decision-makers and industry experts who are shaping the future of cybersecurity, data privacy, and AI. These are the leaders setting strategies, managing budgets, and driving innovation across finance, healthcare, government, technology, and more.

Directors9%

Vice Presidents12.6%

Managers23.1%

CxO's26.1%

Practioners29.1%

Conference Partners

Partner with the 2026 Secure Carolinas Conference to demonstrate your dedication to advancing regional cybersecurity. By aligning with us, you showcase your commitment to strengthening security efforts across South Carolina, while gaining visibility and forging valuable connections within the cybersecurity community.

Become a Partner today

Partner with one of the top cyber security events company in South and North Carolina today.

Keynote Speakers

We are proud to present a powerhouse lineup of speakers for the 2026 Secure Carolinas Conference, each recognized as a leader in the cybersecurity space. This group includes senior government officials, top industry executives, leading researchers, and frontline practitioners who are shaping the future of security.

Together, they bring a wide range of perspectives—from policymaking and operational defense to academic research and emerging technologies. Attendees will gain firsthand access to the latest developments, tested strategies, and actionable insights drawn from real-world experience.

Through keynote sessions and focused discussions, these experts will explore today’s most urgent cybersecurity challenges and share forward-thinking solutions that can be applied across industries. Whether you’re protecting critical infrastructure, managing enterprise risk, or driving innovation, the knowledge shared here will be directly relevant to your work.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from those driving the conversation in cybersecurity. The 2026 Secure Carolinas Conference is your chance to hear from the best, expand your perspective, and walk away with strategies you can use right away.

Amy Barthelemy

Anandan Sonaimuthu

Ashley Sage

Avdesh Mishra

Blaize Stewart

Brennan Lodge

Chip Crane

Christopher Kemper

Clint Spicer

Cyrus Walker

Dr. S. Isele

Dusty Gulleson

Eric Kuehn

Eugene Willis

Fletus Poston III

Gareth Hay

Himanshu Pandey

Jared Chambliss

Jason Clark

Jason Farrell

Jerry Carlson

Jim Markunas

Joe B.

Lakeidra Smith

Lisa Tee

Lucas Ward

Markel Samuel

Monifa Mcknight

Neviar Rawlinson

Pradeep Periasamy

Rachelle Waite-Bey

Randall Laudermilk

Reginald Johnson

Riaz Javed Butt

Savi Grover

Sushmitha Kandhukuri

Toby Louris

Tom Scott

Venkata Vivek Kothakonda

Zach Seiter

Event Date

August 26-27

8:00 am - 5:00 pm

Roam Greenville
2 W Washington Street Suite 200 Greenville, SC 29601

TICKET REGISTRATION CALL FOR SPEAKERS