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Cyber Threat Realities Highlight DefenseStorm Chief Technology Officer Session at AFSA 2018 Vehicle Finance Conference & Exposition
[March 20, 2018]

Cyber Threat Realities Highlight DefenseStorm Chief Technology Officer Session at AFSA 2018 Vehicle Finance Conference & Exposition


Cybercrime damages will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2015 and driving more profit than the global trade of all major illegal drugs combined, according to the 2017 U.S. State of Cybercrime survey, conducted annually by CSO in partnership with the U.S. Secret Service and CERT at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Against the backdrop of this reality, DefenseStorm Chief Technology Officer Sean Cassidy will offer insights on understanding and safeguarding against cyber threats to attendees of the American Financial Services Association (AFSA) 2018 Vehicle Finance Conference & Exposition being held Tuesday, March 20 through Thursday, March 22 at Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cassidy will speak in a General Session on Wednesday, March 21 at 2:00 p.m. PT, and share content relevant to both businesses and individuals concerned about information security, fraud, hacking, cybercrime and cyberwars. An expert in software development and cloud computing, Cassidy has been a thought leader in the information security community for more than a decade. He is an innovator in connecting Software as a Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) development with infrastructure security, and his background includes building the video transcoding system for Limelight Networks and developing antivirus, intrusion prevention and Virtual Private Network (VPN) capabilities in Cisco's (News - Alert) Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall. He holds a Master of Computer Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology, is the author of numerous open source projects and is a frequent speaker at top-tier IT and security conferences. He also authors a blog on prgramming and startups at www.seancassidy.me.



Cassidy currently serves as the Chief Technology Officer of DefenseStorm, a company he co-founded in 2014 to empower regional and community-focused banks and credit unions with technology and expertise to protect against cyber threats and to prove to Boards of Directors, regulators and auditors compliance with internal policies as well as financial institution-specific cybersecurity best practices defined by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) Cybersecurity Assessment Tool (CAT).

"The research firm Gartner (News - Alert) predicts information security spending will hit $6 trillion per year globally by 2021, dramatically up from 2017's global spend of $86.4 billion," Cassidy said. "There isn't an industry, firm or individual who isn't impacted in some way by the escalating level and severity of cyber threats, whether that impact is investing in cybersecurity measures and technology, modifying behavior, or simply feeling a growing tension regarding what 'bad actors' can do," Cassidy said. "The good news is that deflective and protective technologies and strategies are advancing as quickly, and often ahead of, nefarious ones, so effective counteraction is available," he added.


About DefenseStorm

DefenseStorm is the only company that combines and automates in real time cybersecurity and cybercompliance built for banking, so financial institutions can achieve Cyber Safety & Soundness according to regulations and their own policies. The DefenseStorm GRID™ is the only co-managed, cloud-based and compliance-automated solution of its kind, operating as a technology system and as a service supported by experts in financial institution security and compliance. It watches everything on an FI's network and matches it to defined policies for real time and proactive cyber exposure readiness. The FFIEC CAT requirements are built-in to an Active Compliance™ engine and automated, as can be other frameworks and an FI's own policies, turning manual "check-box" compliance into a real time discipline that meaningfully enhances an FI's risk management posture. A Threat Ready Active Compliance (TRAC) Team™ co-manages the DefenseStorm GRID with customers to deliver the advantages of a Security Operations Center in the cloud without adding staff and capital expenditures. www.DefenseStorm.com


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